Marzocchi’s legendary Open Bath Design dates to even before Marzocchi’s inception in 1949 when the original Marzocchi brothers insisted that their Ducati suspension designs only utilize Open Bath Systems. Not much has changed since the early days and we still insist that all our high-end performance designs operate around our Open Bath Technology. If you look back at our competitors, they have been all over the board in their technology offerings. At times, it is quite comical to read their old advertisements, touting each year’s technology as the one that would revolutionize the MTB world. When the others were spewing buzz words and focusing on advertising campaigns, we were fine-tuning our proven Open Bath Technology, delivering continual high-end performance that has since become the benchmark for others to dream about. For 2005, we introduce the largest advancement in our MTB Open Bath technology. Once again by trickling down an amazing damping system developed in our Supercross Moto Division, our new ICON Damping System is born. Based on a closed damping cartridge, it uses a unique bladder rubber system submerged in a bath of oil. Read more about ICON in our ICON Damping section.

Cryofitting

The crown and stanchions of every Marzocchi single crown fork are assembled by a process called Cryofit. The Cryofit process is based on the simple principle that metal alloys expand when heated and contract when cooled. By taking advantage of this characteristic, we are able to make a bond between crown and stanchion that is much stronger than any other conventional method. The entire process is performed by our robotic machine, which our Industrial Division designed specifically for us. The process begins by checking the exact tolerances of every crown and stanchion. The stanchion tubes are then placed in a cryogenic tank of liquid nitrogen to cool and shrink, while the crown is placed in an oven to heat and expand. After pressing these three components together (two stanchions and one crown) and allowing the material to return to room temperature, the three components are nearly welded together providing superb strength and stiffness.

Fork Crown Emphasis

Crowns? Why don't you ever hear or see anything that draws attention to fork crowns from other manufacturers? Probably because they don't seem to catch on to the importance of designing a solid crown and mating it to the correct fork. Marzocchi employs itself heavily in the art of what DSC calls "Fork Crown Emphasis." A fork crown is the piece that unites, bridges or joins the fork legs to the steerer tube. While Fox, Manitou and Rock Shox are content to leave the definition so implistic, Marzocchi places a significant emphasis on expanding the role of the fork crown to increase the over all stiffness of the fork. Marzocchi's fork crowns are designed to individually meet the needs of each individual fork, and in doing so maximizes the lateral stiffness at the top of the fork where a signifcant amount of flex can effect the overall performance of the fork. Marzocchi crowns most effectively keep both fork legs operating together, instead of independently, so that the fork compressions occur together, offerring increased smoothness and elongated durability.

Marzocchi Break-In Period

While you may have heard the phrase, "Out of the box, nothing feels like a Fox," you also may have caught on that it doesn't say, "Nothing gets as plush or as smooth as a Fox." Nope, to my knowledge, it has never been said. It has been said however, and quite often, that once you break-in a Marzocchi, NOTHING could EVER be as plush or as smooth. Although you wish a Marzocchi would be SUPER plush right out of the box, the only reason you get "Marzocchi plushness" results from the same system that makes you break it in. You see, with Marzocchi's Open Bath system the fork arrives with dry seals, but as you wear in the fork with your riding you naturally moisten the seals over time so that within about a dozen rides or so you begin to get that Marzocchi smooth operation that you've read about, mouth-watering and google-eyed. So when you get your Marzocchi and it doesn't feel super plush out of the box, no worries, you're in the process of making Marzocchi heaven!