Marzocchi Dirt Jumper 1 review

Dirt Jumper forks have ruled the dirt, jump and street scene for years and useful improvements for 2006 mean it looks like business as usual.

The best news for habitual fork wreckers is that the new crown has bolted clamps, so you can replace damaged legs individually rather than writing off the whole top end. 20mm dropouts keep the steering stiff and make sure your wheel stays put, and the forks are slightly lighter too.

The new damping system (with an alloy shaft) seems smoother and more consistently controlled and you get external adjustment of both the rebound and compression damping. The twin-coil spring set-up retains dual air-preload caps for pumping things up firmer when you’re going big or coming back from the pie shop.

In other words, it’s super easy to tune your landing gear at the trail side if you’re not getting the smoothness you’re after. We’ve had slight teething troubles with our sample, but we know loads of riders who’ve got nothing but joy from their new fork.

All the Dirt Jumper forks only have 100mm of travel and, unlike other 06 Marzocchis, they haven’t switched to easy-fit post style disc mounts. The DJ1 is also quite expensive, although the external rebound adjust-only DJ2 is £40 less at £359.95 and the internally-adjustable DJ3 is £244.95.