Marzocchi’s heritage lives on from the early free ride days and is best known for their affordable, simple and burly suspension. The Bomber Z1 was rereleased in 2018 and has quickly made it’s way back into the spotlight for being, well, affordable, simple and burly. But today, Marzocchi returns even deeper into their roots with the brand new Bomber Z1 Coil.

Marzocchi as a brand has been making suspension forks since 1989, and their popularity peaked in the 2000’s with their, no pun intended, bomber suspension. It was simple, heavy duty and affordable which created a bit of a cult following of real die-hard riders that didn’t desire tons of adjustments and over complexities. Open bath dampers and coil springs dominated their lineups and lots of people on the internet these days voiced their opinions on how they need to bring coil forks back.

But don’t worry, the wait is over with the release of new Bomber Z1 coil.

Fox actually purchased Marzocchi a couple of years ago, so now you get the high-quality manufacturing and customer support of Fox, but with that burly freeride Marzocchi attitude.

From the outside, the Z1 Coil looks exactly like the Z1. Both forks use the same semi-sealed and ultra plush GRIP damper known for being simple and reliable. Plus the lowers, crown and 36mm stanchions are the same. But take a peek at the top of the spring side and instead of an air valve, you’ll see a Preload adjustment which helps you set your sag. Inside you’ll find the brand new and super simple coil spring assembly.

A lightweight silicon chromium spring is used and surrounded by a nifty noise isolator so the spring stays quiet instead of the common rattle that comes from coil forks when the spring hits the stanchion walls. The preload knob at the top will help you fine tune your sag, and the fork’s Air Assist design helps control the fork’s progression and creates a little bottom-out resistance so the fork is slightly progressive. Travel is adjustable internally without any additional parts by just reorienting the travel spacers. 29” forks can be set to 150, 160 or 170mm and 27.5” forks can adjust to 160, 170 or 180mm.

Adding a coil spring means this fork with the medium spring weighs 280 grams more than the air version, but lets be honest, if you’re wanting to run a coil fork than chances are you’re not counting grams. Speaking of springs, there’s 4 options: Soft, Medium, Firm and Extra Firm. Check out the chart below to find out which one is best for you.

That GRIP damper is super simple to setup with just low-speed rebound and low speed compression and will match perfectly with the Marzocchi Bomber CR rear shock for an easy to setup, affordable, burly and reliable coil shock setup front and rear.

Jason (sales at The Lost Co) has ridden the Bomber Z1 Coil for several months now and is loving it. Here are Jason's words on how the Z1 Coil rides:

"I've been running the Z1 coil on my custom steel hardtail, and I've got to say, I'm pretty impressed. Usually I'm more of an air-shock or air-fork guy and I've had a Z1 on my hardtail and have loved it. It's been great with the hardtail; super simple. Set it and forget it.

All of that is the same with the Z1 Coil but I've actually been pretty impressed with how the coil has performed. I currently run a stiffer spring than recommended for my body weight. It's definitely a little less sag but it rides higher in the travel than the air fork due to the nature of a coil and I've got to say, I'm kind of a fan. The small bump compliance is unmatched and I'm pretty impressed that the fork doesn't actually have too harsh of a bottom out. For me, the slight bottom out in the coil isn't enough of a negative to overshadow the huge advantage of the small bump compliance on this fork.

Yes it does add a little bit of weight, but personally I don't really like riding my bike on any cross country trails or have small climbs in them. Usually I'm climbing a fire road to the top and riding a trail downhill as fast as possible.

If thats you, this is a fork that was designed with those very same principles in mind. The whole point of this fork is to go downhill extremely well and have that "set it and forget it" attitude.

No crazy dials. The fork just works. You don't even have to check your air pressure either."

Like we said before, Fox does own Marzocchi, and the Bomber Z1 shares a lot of characteristics with the Fox Factory 36. Both forks have 36mm stanchions, but there is a difference in stiffness due to the Z1's stanchions, lowers and crown. The stanchion walls are thicker, the lowers have less material machined away and the crown is built from a thicker material. This makes the Bomber Z1 a stiffer and burlier brother to the Fox 36.

Combine that stiffness with a coil spring and you've got yourself a super easy to setup, affordable and reliable fork which is going to make a lot of people very happy when they're riding aggressively downhill.

If you already have a Z1 air fork, you can easily upgrade to a coil setup with their coil conversion kit which is $130 plus a $45 spring. It is worth mentioning that if you do convert to coil, you can not convert the fork back to air. But if you’re ready for a whole new fork, you can adopt a Z1 Coil fork for $749. Just make sure you give it a good home.

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info@thelostco.com