At the time, rumours swirled that the reason the fork wasn't widely released was that the carbon upper was so stiff it would snap the headtubes off bikes not up to the task, which had the scent of bullshit about it at the time and is positively ripe in hindsight.Įven so, it was a technological marvel and showcased the sort of technology Marzocchi could bring to bear, as well as highlighting its innovation in the world of upside down forks. Sadly, the fork was beset by production problems and was rarely seen at the time and is something of a retro-bike unicorn nowadays. You could have it with coil or air springs and travel ranged from 80 to 120mm.
The fork grew from a desire to make a lighter fork that could be used for cross-country racing, hence using composites to offset the weight of the open bath oil damping and sturdy aluminium lowers. The name stands for Reverse Advanced Composite as the upside-down design used an upper made from Easton carbon fibre which, at the time, was a massively high-tech material that was only just being used for frames and components. Talking of bonkers projects, the RAC stands head and shoulders above the rest. The less said about the huge axle-to-crown length of the first generation forks, the better too. Okay, the fork alone weighed over 3kg, so the result was some rather chunky complete bikes, but this was an era where a 'freeride' bike could weigh over 18kg and no-one would blink an eye. Marzocchi's open bath oil'n'coil suspension made for a buttery smooth, hard hitting and reliable fork that found its way onto bikes that were the forerunners to today's enduro machines. Okay, it wasn't the first long travel single crown fork - the Manitou Dorado takes that honour - but it probably made the biggest impact of that first crop, and not just because it weighed a sodding tonne. Despite losing the bracing of an upper crown, it was still plenty stiff thanks to seriously chunky lower legs and a steel steerer tube that was almost a solid bar where it entered the crown. Based on the equally influential 888 downhill fork, it offered a huge 150mm or 170mm of travel in a single crown design. That meant steering lock was limited and, importantly, you couldn't pull any rad bar-spins or X-ups when you were out freeriding. At the time, most long travel forks - and anything over about 130mm was considered long travel - were triple clamp designs, where the legs extended above the crown and were then braced by a second clamp at the top of the headset. Move forward a few years and into the beating heart of the North Shore and freeride era and once again Marzocchi came out with a product that changed the way people thought about suspension forks.
The chassis was hugely overbuilt compared to its rivals and the fork had a significant weight penalty, but it proved that precise handling and real suspension performance could more than make up for that. Due to the open bath oil design, the damping was adjustable for both compression and rebound - almost unheard of at the time - and the large volume of oil sloshing about in the legs meant they were low maintenance, hugely reliable and extremely consistent. The Z1 also pushed the limits of suspension travel, offering what was then a whopping 100mm of squidge.
The Z1 threw all that out of the window, dipping into Marzocchi's motorbike heritage to use a combination of an open bath oil damping cartridge and a coil spring in each leg. That might have made for a light fork but there was no damping adjustment and the rubber would also stiffen up hugely in the cold or get very springy if hot. At the time, most suspension forks were spindly legged items, with manufacturers more worried about trying to keeping weight competitive with the then-ubiquitous rigid forks than outright suspension performance. Most still used elastomeric rubber as both the spring and damper, with travel rarely exceeding a paltry 63mm. It's no exaggeration to say that this is possibly the most influential mountain bike suspension fork of all time after the pioneering RockShox RS-1.
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