Are Marzocchi 55s reliable ?

Prowlus

I'm considering upgrading my OEM Zochi 55RS that came on my Ransom to forks that can adjust the travel for hill climbing .
The straightforward upgrade would be the 55 atas but after reading questionable reviews about them and their 66 cousin on CRC and MTBR mostly involving the fork either blowing its seals, leaking air or dropping travel automatically after compression , Is this a wise purchase or asking for my bike to spend more time at the repair shop than on trails? Or should i wait for the big M to release their 08/09 forks before comitting?

dave_hill

There seem to have been a lot of reliability issues with 55s.

Personally for what you'd spend on the 55 ATAs (£599 from CRC) I'd be looking at a Lyrik U-Turn for a tenner more.

Granted they are heavier, but the trade-off in reliability would be worth it.

Anonymous

Prowlus wrote:

I'm considering upgrading my OEM Zochi 55RS that came on my Ransom to forks that can adjust the travel for hill climbing .
The straightforward upgrade would be the 55 atas but after reading questionable reviews about them and their 66 cousin on CRC and MTBR mostly involving the fork either blowing its seals, leaking air or dropping travel automatically after compression , Is this a wise purchase or asking for my bike to spend more time at the repair shop than on trails? Or should i wait for the big M to release their 08/09 forks before comitting?

Well, for a start, if you weant adjustable travel, then you already have the lockdown on top of the right(?) leg. In practice, this is actually better than the ATA or ATA2-system.
With the ATA, you have to wind it down, with the ETA, you just flip the switch, and compress them with your weight - much faster.

As for reliability - The main culprit is the actual ATA/ATA-2 system. BUT - Even then you should be fine as long as your forks don't work so hard they overheat, and that, generally, only really happens on things like braking bumps in morzine :roll:

Unless there's something actually wrong with your 55s, I'd stick with them. The damping is, franky, awesome, and completely, totally, and utterly, wipes the floor with any other fork I've tried.

Sorry, Dave, but as far as I'm concerned, Rockshox ain't even playing the same sport, let alone being in the same ballpark when it comes to damping.

And as for travel adjust, it's mostly a personaly thing, but I have to say, once I got bored of fiddling with the ATA-2 on my forks, I just left it at the highest setting all the time anyway.

Prowlus

dave_hill wrote:

There seem to have been a lot of reliability issues with 55s.

Personally for what you'd spend on the 55 ATAs (£599 from CRC) I'd be looking at a Lyrik U-Turn for a tenner more.


Granted they are heavier, but the trade-off in reliability would be worth it.

Sorry I meant ata2s which are £359 on my budget . The actual atas are way to expensive for me but i may look somewhere else if they have not solved their issues in the current batch

Anonymous

Prowlus wrote:

dave_hill wrote:

There seem to have been a lot of reliability issues with 55s.

Personally for what you'd spend on the 55 ATAs (£599 from CRC) I'd be looking at a Lyrik U-Turn for a tenner more.


Granted they are heavier, but the trade-off in reliability would be worth it.

Sorry I meant ata2s which are £359 on my budget . The actual atas are way to expensive for me but i may look somewhere else if they have not solved their issues in the current batch

What have you decided to do?
I'd stick with what you've got. The airsprung 55's aren't much lighter than the coilsprung ones (like yours). And they are great forks.

On the other hand, if you REALLY want to upgrade, hang on until the new 55 models come out. I'm sure you can cope until then.