• Marzocchi MX Pro ETA forks
• £279
• www.marzocchi.com
• Windwave 023 9252 1912

Over the years, Marzocchi have built up a well-deserved reputation for reliable and top-performing forks. And every year the trickle-down effect means that they get a bit cheaper… Not ever so many years ago, the thought that one day we’d be able to get a fork like the MX Pro for the money it costs would have been preposterous. But here it is.

The MX series are listed as being for enduro, XC and “aggressive XC” use. Just on features alone the MX Pro is impressive. You’re getting 105mm of travel (air sprung on this version – there is a coil spring in one leg but you can only adjust the air side. There’s a coil-only model too), Marzocchi’s open-bath SSVF damping (with a handy compression blow-off valve to prevent spiking), adjustable rebound damping and ETA. ETA is External Travel Adjust, Marzocchi’s take on the different fork length for different purposes theory. Most people find that they want more fork going downhill than uphill – big long forks tend to make the front wheel wander and lift on the climbs. RockShox and Fox have on-the-fly travel adjusters via top-mounted knobs, allowing the rider to set the travel anywhere between the two extremes. Manitou have two positions, long and longer. While Marzocchi have long and very short…

ETA is a development of Marzocchi’s ECC lockout. While compression lockouts had been around for a while, they locked out the fork at full extension. Fine for short-travel forks, but a long fork locked out doesn’t do anything to help the aforementioned uphill wander. Actually, we usually find it makes it worse – if the fork’s allowed to move you can get more weight over the front and it’ll sag a bit more. ECC is a rebound lockout – flick the lever, bounce the fork and it locks out compressed. So you get a shorter, better steering fork. What you don’t get is any travel, so if it’s bumpy you have to make do with a long fork. ETA sorts that out too. Flick the ETA lever and you’re left with 30mm of fairly stiff but usable travel and considerably better steering.

It’s a neat idea and we did find it useful. But it’s not as useful as being able to dial in any old amount of travel, particularly since the ‘zocchi is quite a long fork. Often with on-the-fly adjustable forks we end up running them at odd travels like 92mm to find the best all-round performance for whatever bike they’re on. With this one, you’re stuck with 105mm or 30mm (you can convert the forks down to 85mm with internal mods if you need a shorter fork for your bike, though). This is largely a question of personal preference, though – we like to just set off and ride without fiddling with things as we go along.

Externally, the MX Pro is a fine-looking beast. The crown and brake arch are forged into an M shape for a bit of subtle branding – not necessarily the most structurally efficient shape but it doesn’t seem to do any harm. The lower leg assembly is one piece, with the legs themselves ovalised fore and aft to add a bit of stiffness in that direction. It’s only partially successful, as most of the fore-aft flex comes from the stanchion tubes. They’re 30mm anodised aluminium which is adequate if not outstanding. We experienced a bit of tuck under heavy braking but not really anything to write home about. The dropouts are sizably buttressed into the lower legs and carry reassuringly deep recesses for the skewers to drop into.

Brake mounting options include an ISO disc mount on the left leg and somewhere to fit V-brake bosses. The bosses themselves come in a bag, with the holes for them filled with a blanking plug on one side and a hose clip on the other. There’s generally a fair amount of material in these forks, contributing to a not-too-svelte weight of 4.4lb.

Out on the trail, performance is as good as we could hope for. As is customary with Marzocchi forks, they take a fair while to break in and feel sluggish until they do. Once everything’s smoothed out, though, they’re very capable over all scales of bump. If they’ve been sitting for a while they’ll be a bit squelchy-sounding for a couple of miles until all the oil’s circulated back to where it needs to be, but that’s about the only niggle.

We’ve been running this 2003 model for several months. It’s been through a UK winter and, worse, spring. A variety of unpleasantly abrasive soils have been chucked at it and so far it just hasn’t cared. Maintenance has been limited to external cleaning and a bit of light oil on the stanchions. Every so often we check that it’s still got air in it and generally it has. This is one of the things we very much like about Marzocchi forks – they just keep going. And when eventually you do need to fiddle with them, they’re easy to work on.

Verdict: At the cheaper end of the fork market, it’s tough to beat Marzocchi. This is a solid-performing, reliable fork, with the only real downside being a bit of heft. We’re not totally convinced by the ETA lock-down, but you can get an MX Pro without it for just £239 which really is a bargain…

Performance: 5/5
Value: 4/5
Overall: 4/5