Marzocchi Corsa Super Leggera RC

Marzocchi’s Corsa race fork has always lagged somewhat behind Rock Shox’s SID and the ever solid performing F-series from Fox. For 2011 Marzocchi have completely overhauled the Corsa, and to really up their game they’re offer well-timed and ground breaking 3-year warranty with - wait for it - no servicing stipulations!

Let’s just stick on that topic for a moment as it has some significance. A quick search of any popular MTB forum and you’ll not have to look long before someone complains about unrealistic servicing requirements and unfair warranties in suspension forks. In previous years it was common for a 24-hour race to technically void your warranty although both Fox and Rock Shox have now changed this (although a Rock Shox fork will still need some degree of servicing after 25 hours of riding). So with Marzocchi promising 3 years where the only requirement is to keep them externally clean is really quite something. And we really think this is far more inline with the expectations of your average rider, we certainly hope Marzocchi pioneer a cultural shift in suspension warranties here!

Back to the fork itself. The Corsa Super Leggera RC, to use its full name, is Marzocchi’s flagship race fork and as mentioned has been completely redesigned. Marzocchi claim that every single component has been overhauled to give a credible race weight, but with the durability required for that 3-year, no-service warranty.

An all alloy construction with 32mm nickel coated alloy stanchions make up the build. The familiar M-shaped brace with forged Bomber logo are present. Using Marzocchi’s TST Micro sealed cartridge the Corsa Super Leggera offers rebound adjustment and lock-out with micro adjust compression threshold. Compression is adjusted via their AER system which is a single-chamber, low-pressure air system. While not offering quite the adjustability of a SID with its dual air chambers or some of the tuning options of the higher end models - it’s easy to find a good setup with the Corsa and it’s rather fit and forget after that. We literally looked up the recommended pressures in the manual, dialed in the rebound and went riding - and it didn’t need much tweaking after that.

The rebound adjuster offers a fairly narrow useable range with the fork feeling “fast, still fast, fast again”, before a few more turns send it all a bit sludgy and slow. Thankfully a sweet spot does exist and isn’t so narrow you won’t find it, requiring only a minutes of patience to find.

Pure racers will appreciate the remote lock-out. The lever is light and the action good although it feels a little flimsy and we wouldn’t like to comment on its crash proofing, so don’t bolt it on too tight. That said, it’s less obtrusive on the bars than many others and it’s less likely to take chunks out of you in a crash. The micro adjust essentially allows you to dial in how solid or active you want the fork to be under lockout. You can either have it completely solid and save the lockout for standing and honking up fireroad climbs (our preference) or you can have it a bit more active so that you still get some small bump compliance but if you’re really putting the power down it won’t be bobbing away too much.

Talking of small-bumps, if there’s one quote from the marketing copy from Marzocchi that makes you scoff, but actually turns out to true, it’s the claim of “coil-like performance”. Marzocchi claim that the low-pressure system offers the plushness in the early stroke of coil fork due to the seals sliding more smoothly; with less air pressure on them, there’s less initial stiction. We can honestly say this must be the best small-bump performance from any short-travel air fork we know of. Pattering along cobbly bridleways or slightly bumpy singletrack and the Corsa just floats along. If you’re an endurance rider you’ll really appreciate this and it’s almost criminal to lock the fork out and lose this.

We found the Corsa to be nicely controlled and it punched well above its weight. Despite its race intentions and rather cautious warning in the manual about what you can and can’t do with a Marzocchi XC fork - we found the Corsa Super Leggera to be a real ripper of a trail fork and it’s spent most of the last 6 months on our On One 456 Summer Season - hardly an XC whippet. Stiffness was good for its weight and intended use, and with a nice supple mid-stroke and a tendency to ramp up not too aggressively at the end, we found the Corsas took everything we and the Summer Season threw at them.

Our only grumble, and this is very slight, is that we did notice a tiny bit of a rebound top out knock at times. It definitely got better with time and it was something we only really noticed when bobbing about on smooth, long, seated climbs - it only happens if you manage to make the fork return to a non-sagged state so it wasn't common to notice it. “Knock” is perhaps even too strong a word for it but it was a slight annoyance in an otherwise flawless performance.

Visually the Marzocchi Corsas really look the part, the slick Nickel-coated stanchions looking a lot more robust than the coating methods used by other brands. The white paint is chip free and looking good so far. It’s not plain gloss white but a nice pearlescent blend and feels top class. The adjusters are a mixed bag in terms of quality. They all look well finished but the aforementioned remote lockout lever and the rebound adjuster feel a little flimsy in the hand. The cap on the air pressure valve is decent though and cold-finger friendly. The lockout and threshold adjusters are rock solid but the compression dial is a bit sharp in the hand. The decals are ‘ok’ but perhaps lower the tone a touch on this classy little set of prongs.

At 1490 grams (claimed, ours was just over 1500g with cut steerer, crown race and star nut) it’s only marginally heavier than the equivalently priced SID (RLT) but then it’s £30 cheaper and you do get the remote lockout - so price and weight wise the numbers add up too. The fact that the fork is well up for some short-travel trail hooliganism opens up its versatility as slacker four-inch trail bikes become more and more popular.

After 6 months use our Corsa Super Leggeras are still like new. They never needed much bedding in and they’re still super plush and fresh. Whether the three year warranty is ever called upon remains to be seen but we have high hopes, and if you do need it and Marzocchi (or rather distributors Windwave) are happy to honor it, it’s still a step in the right direction!

This latest evolution, or rather revolution, of the Corsa Super Leggera means that Marzocchi finally have a credible alternative to the SID and F-Series (at the entry level anyway). It’s light, stiff and controlled, and in terms of small-bump performance and outright plushness it actually eclipses them both. Endurance riders and those of a fit and forget mentality might well find the Corsas are a much better proposition, and the warranty simply can’t be ignored!

A genuine alternative in the race fork market, unrivaled warranty, with decent performance and value.

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