Flow reviews the Marzocchi Bomber Air Shock

Ever since Marzocchi was acquired by Fox Racing Shox in 2015, the brand has been producing high quality suspension with a distinct focus on reliability, ease of setup and accessible pricing. By leveraging Fox’s technologies and extensive manufacturing expertise, Marzocchi has produced some solid products over the years, including the Bomber Z1 and Z2 forks, and the Bomber CR coil shock. The Bomber Air shock is the latest option to come from Marzocchi, and based off our experience of testing it over the past few months, we expect it’s going to be a popular one too.

What’s the Marzocchi Bomber Air shock designed for?

The Marzocchi Bomber Air is a new addition that sits alongside the existing Bomber CR coil shock. Without a heavy coil spring, the Bomber Air is significantly lighter, coming in at 481g on our workshop scales. That’s literally half the weight of the Bomber CR!

Of course it’s a lot easier to adjust compared to a coil shock too. Thanks to its high volume air can and a large piggyback reservoir, the Marzocchi Bomber Air shock is said to suit everything from trail riding through to downhill racing and dirt jumping.

To suit its wide-ranging intentions, the Bomber Air is available in a huge array of sizes from a tiny 190x40mm shock all the way up to a 225x75mm monster. It’s produced in both standard and trunnion mounts, and it’s also compatible with Fox bearing mounts.

You’ll notice that the reservoir is slightly off-centre, which isn’t just for looks. This is to provide increased clearance with some frame’s downtubes when the shock is fully compressed.

What adjustments are there?

A lot of modern shocks can be quite intimidating to set up, but the Marzocchi Bomber Air is not one of them. You won’t find any high-speed compression dials or hydraulic bottom out adjusters here, with the Bomber Air stripping it back to provide you with only what’s necessary.

In terms of external adjustments, you’ve got air pressure, a rebound dial and a compression dial. That’s it.

There are 10 clicks of adjustment for low-speed rebound damping, while the compression dial uses a non-indexed sweep between ‘Soft’ and ‘Firm’. Both adjustments are tool-free and can be tweaked easily mid-ride.

Inside the air can you’ll find plastic volume spacers. Unfortunately these are not the same as what you’ll find in a Fox shock. Instead these are specific to the Bomber Air, and if you do wish to play around with progression, you’ll need to spend $38 AUD for the tuning kit.

Marzocchi Bomber Air Shock price

Unlike shocks from Fox and RockShox that are offered in multiple tiers, the Marzocchi Bomber Air is only available in a single version. It’s priced at $749 AUD, making the Bomber Air competitively priced amongst the competition.

For example, you’ll be looking at spending quite a bit more to get your hands on a Float X Factory Series shock ($969 AUD) or a RockShox Super Deluxe Ultimate ($903 AUD).

So you can save a decent amount of cash by choosing the Bomber Air. But does it feel cheaper on the trail?

Setting up

We’ve been testing a Marzocchi Bomber Air shock on a Norco Sight A2 for the past few months. The Bomber Air initially replaced a RockShox Super Deluxe shock (a pre-2023 model), though we’ve recently been swapping back and forth between both shocks to knuckle down on the differences.

While Marzocchi offers different shock tunes for bike brands to choose from, Bomber Air shocks sold aftermarket come with a general, middle-of-the-road tune that’s designed to work for a wide variety of riders and suspension designs. All you need to do is choose the right size for your bike and bolt it on.

Setting up the Bomber Air is straightforward, and there’s a useful online tuning guide to help you get started. We needed 211psi to hit 30% sag for our 85kg test rider, and we set the rebound dial at five clicks off the slowest setting as per the setup guide.

It has to be said that the rebound dial is significantly easier to use than the large ring adjuster on the Super Deluxe. It provides a very large range of adjustment, from pogo-fast to treacle-like slow, with each click offering a noticeable change.

While it would be nice if the low-speed compression adjuster was indexed, it was never actually an issue. The alloy dial feels smooth, and it offers a noticeable change in damping behaviour between the two extremes. Winding the dial 180° into the ‘Firm’ position provides an increase in support that is useful on smoother singletrack climbs. The downside is that it doesn’t provide you with a full lockout, so the Bomber Air suffers from more pedal bob up fireroad climbs and on the bitumen.

Testing the Marzocchi Bomber Air Shock

It took a few good rides for our Marzocchi Bomber Air to properly bed in. Once the IFP and all the internal seals had relaxed however, the performance it provided was impressive. In fact, we struggled to tell the difference between the Bomber Air and the Super Deluxe it replaced.

The factory tune delivers an active and sensitive ride, in part thanks to the high volume chamber for the negative spring. This allows the shock to ease into its the sag point, while building a steady amount of spring force for the remainder of the travel. On our local trails the Bomber Air dealt with the plethora of rim-eating rock edges and granite slabs, maintaining a lively feel that delivered plenty of rear wheel traction.

Overall progression also worked well on the Sight, and we felt no need to mess around with volume spacers. The Bomber Air provides excellent big-hit support thanks to the large MCU bottom-out bumper, which cushions the last few millimetres of travel to avoid any harsh metal-on-metal clunks.

It has to be said that high-speed control isn’t as impressive as a dedicated downhill shock like the Float X2. At race pace across matted sections of roots and through chunky rock gardens, the Bomber Air doesn’t offer the same planted feel and bump-eroding sensitivity. Given the considerable difference in price, construction and adjustability however, this isn’t exactly a surprise.

Indeed for the most part, the Bomber Air is a great performing shock. And while the stock tune worked well for us, it is worth noting is that custom tuning is an option for those who need it. The rebound, compression and base valves can be modified by an authorised service centre, which will be useful for riders who are on the lighter or heavier side of the bell curve, and for bikes with a more nuanced kinematic.

How does it compare to the Fox Float X?

On the surface, the Marzocchi Bomber Air appears to be a lower-priced, stripped-back version of the Fox Float X. And in many regards, that’s not far from the truth.

Both shocks do in fact share the same air can, outer body, main piston, steel damper shaft and MCU bottom out bumper. As a result, the Bomber Air is compatible the same air sleeve service kit as the Float X. Even the 5-piece mounting hardware is the same, and so too are the bolt-in travel reducers for tweaking the shock stroke.

There are some key differences however. Firstly, the Float X features scaled reservoir sizing. The shorter stroke shocks use a smaller reservoir, which provides additional clearance on trail bikes with tighter packaging requirements. In comparison, the longer stroke shocks get a bigger reservoir to provide maximum oil volume and damping consistency for the bigger shocks being fitted to longer travel bikes.

Of course the increased tooling required contributes to the higher price point on the Float X. For this reason the piggyback is the same on all sizes for the Bomber Air, with the angled reservoir being employed as a cheap and simple solution to increase frame clearance.

While the on-trail feel is very similar between the two shocks, there is more adjustability on the Float X. You get a few extra clicks of rebound damping, and the low-speed compression dial is indexed and numbered for easy fine tuning. There’s also a two-position climb switch that provides a very firm, almost-locked out platform. For some riders, this climb switch alone may be worth the premium.

In Australia, the Float X is primarily offered aftermarket in the Factory Series version with a blingy Kashima coating. This coating is claimed to reduce friction, while also increasing surface durability compared to regular hard anodising. Because the Float X isn’t offered aftermarket in a cheaper Performance Series version, this means there is a bigger and more meaningful gap between the Bomber Air and Float X shocks that a consumer can purchase.

Otherwise you can expect a similar service schedule with both shocks. It’s recommended to service both the air spring and damper every 125 hours of ride time, or once a year, depending on which comes first.

Flow’s Verdict

The Marzocchi Bomber Air is a great performing shock that, put simply, just works. It doesn’t require an engineering degree to set up, and it features high quality adjusters that are nice to use and offer a meaningful change in damping performance.

It’s available in a huge range of sizes, and with much of its architecture based on the Float X, general servicing and spare parts are relatively straightforward.

A two-position climb switch would be a nice addition, though of course that would add to the price. If you need one of those, then you’ll have to swallow the price increase and look toward a Float X or Super Deluxe Air. And for the fickle riders who love to tune and mess around with high-speed adjusters, the relatively simple Bomber Air won’t satisfy your knob-twiddling needs.

If you’re more of a set ‘n’ forget kind of person that still values high quality suspension performance however, the Bomber Air is a sweet option. Indeed we reckon we’ll be seeing a lot of these shocks on 2023 mountain bikes and beyond.