It felt...phony? Pushy?

I thought it was the other guys who were PUSH-y

 

This is nothing new. He's been that way for at least 15 years. The irritating part is that he gives degreed and experienced engineers a really bad name by acting like a pissy old nut job.

Then you get the product and find all f'd up fitments, spring rates, piston details and valving setups. Been through this BS with him quite a few times and so have others. Look around a bit and you'll find plenty of good stories about "the Avy experience".

 

Craig can be difficult. This is well known. Some have had no issues. (Fortunately, I am in this group.) Most just kinda go along with his rambles, and with a few they seem to rub each other the wrong way and sparks fly.
However he knows what he is doing and his stuff works.
One thing is you need to be brutally honest with yourself regarding your abilities. If you are accurate about your abilities and what your terrain is like then you will probably be happy. If you are not accurate, then there is a good chance you won't be.

He nailed both my trail bike fork and shock first time out.
The last thing he has done for me was a cartridge for the DH bike fork. I'm old, permanently injured and now slow, so the fork cartridge for the DH bike was a bit firm. Not too far off though. If I was pushing hard at race pace it was good, but for general hacking around it was a bit much. A retune and it's golden.

Hope this helps.

Cheers.

 

In my experience you'll get the best result if you just tell Craig what bike, fork/shock, weight, riding style and let him work his magic. And as mykel said above, be absolutely honest in riding abilities and style. I've always ended up with pretty much exactly what I needed.

IMO Avalanche is not the place for your average narcissistic MTBR keyboard warrior who knows just enough to ask a bunch of annoying questions about every conceivable option.

 

Same as above, I let him know about my bike, weight, style and expectations and he delivered great products without any drama.

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I lived this nightmare with him a few years ago related to having his SSD/HSB mod done to my Fox DPS. After sending it back to him twice for adjustment because he refused to listen to what I wanted and insisted on telling me what I need I finally gave up and tossed the "bricked" shock into my spare parts bin and bought a replacement. After making a few negative posts about the experience here on MTBR he actually reached out to me via e-mail and offered to give me a refund but when I replied saying I'd like to take him up on that he suddenly went silent. Few things in the MTB world would make me happier than to never hear or see the name Avalanche Suspension again.

 

Ya he is for sure a grumdgeon grumpy ****. I am super happy with my Avalanche coil fork. My buddy will eventually be running an Avalanche fork after riding my bike for two months.
I did have similar experience as the op in the beginning. Got off the phone with him and was thinking to myself holyshit this guy is out there. Just speaking for myself and my one Avalanche product I am happy and will be a return customer.

 

That's Craig for you. He knows his shlt, been dealing with him since 2002.

 

With his cartridge I realized how off my suspension was. Partly because of ignorance, partly because I’m a Clyde and partly because his product is really good. I think my cartridge was tuned for a more aggressive riding style so it was a little too progressive. But removing 5cc took care of it. He was very nice with me. I like the damper in my 38, but I would use him again.


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I did my homework and decided his product was praised enough to look past any minor quirks. Well I was very wrong. I should have heeded the red flags during our first phone conversation as I could tell he was full of ego. Went ahead w/ the shock mods and had some tuning issues. In the end I felt like I was dealing w/ a man child and would never deal w/ that company again.

 

The Classic Avalanche Experience. I run his stuff on all my bikes but tend to think he could retire if he had a reality show haha

 

Craig has been around since the early 2000s, and did motos before then.

His staying power is probably a result of him staying small, but his being a small, nearly one man shop (and a few ladies who help out with logistics) also means he doesn't have time to fine tune the details for every customer on the first try.

Honestly if you look at every company out there, they are also going to have some complaints. Vorsprung and EXT might be outliers, but even they can't get things perfect 100% of the time.

Craig tries his best considering the size of his company. If and when he sells it, I'm sure a few will jump at the chance to own it. Personally, if I was offered a few weeks to work alongside him just to suck up a smidgen of his knowledge, I'd take that opportunity.

 

Craig has been around since the early 2000s, and did motos before then.

His staying power is probably a result of him staying small, but his being a small, nearly one man shop (and a few ladies who help out with logistics) also means he doesn't have time to fine tune the details for every customer on the first try.

Honestly if you look at every company out there, they are also going to have some complaints. Vorsprung and EXT might be outliers, but even they can't get things perfect 100% of the time.

Craig tries his best considering the size of his company. If and when he sells it, I'm sure a few will jump at the chance to own it. Personally, if I was offered a few weeks to work alongside him just to suck up a smidgen of his knowledge, I'd take that opportunity.

Tries his best or tries his worst? If I had to write a manual of how to suicide a small business, I would just look to Avalanche for endless examples.

 

I lived the nightmare! He was great on the phone because as an engineer I could relate to what he was saying but what I found out was his quality of work subpar. The shock performed great for 3-4 months then it fell off the cliff. So instead of dealing with him because after more research he’s always right. I sent it elsewhere for evaluation. Turns out the piston was not deburred so some aluminum broke off and scratched the inner wall. This created a leak path rendering shock useless. He wouldn’t refund my money and I refused to give him another chance to muck up my shock.

bottom line, their are plenty of tuners out there that can match his product and give you better customer service.

 

Craig is for sure 100% kook, but he knows what's up and i've had nothing but stellar performing products from him for over 20 years now.

 

why are the biggest nutters the best in their field I'll never know.

I muck around with Harley Davidsons doing proper riding on them (think a harley that can corner) and the ohlins guru I deal with is the same, any phone call is a 2+hr affair and I get 3 words in lol. However he knows his **** and it's almost worth putting up with. Eccentricity and genius go hand in hand it seems.

 

why are the biggest nutters the best in their field I'll never know.

Because it's a curse to be continually seeing stuff that no-one else can.

 

Craig's stuff is really really good and I've used him 3x. Don't care much about the other drama, but if I'm honest I find him pretty cool to chat with also. Craig is smart and passionate.
I recommended Avy to a buddy of mine a while back, but instead purchased a high end brand for myself. And having ridden both, his Avy stuff is much better and didn't need anything to work perfectly.


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Wait — there’s a Harley that corners?
=sParty

 

Craig is a good guy, and as others have stated knows his ****. Have had many shocks tuned by him over the years and all have been stellar. I did have trouble with one fork cartridge, but in hindsight I requested an inappropriate tune. Knowing what you want to achieve with tuning, and accurately assessing your own skill level is important.

He is certainly intense, and discussion with him can be overwhelming at times. His passion and willingness to spend time educating his customers shouldn’t be deemed a character flaw. IMO at least.

 

Has anyone worked with them recently? I'd wanted to try out a cartridge from them, so called them up, and boy was I taken aback.

Right out of the gate dude brings up him getting covid, the subsequent long recovery(6 weeks combined, stuck in a hospital too), and then finishes with "but I probably won't get the shot anyways". However you feel about it, I thought my brain had a short circuit hearing it.

Then comes the product recommendation. Ok, cool, a bit long-winded-- he's passionate, that's fine. But when someone says you can get either piece(damper, hybrid coil, dual) as an add-on, I thought I'd tell him the spring I'll be using, and we'd finish this up. Then comes the hard sell. Literally telling me every way till Sunday that any spring system except theirs will be a compromise, "you don't have to take our recommendation, but we might decide it's best not to do business with you".

I ask "could you supply alternate tunes or valving, in case I feel I need a change after using it?"(I'd install myself, and I've never ridden the thing so...idk). Then comes "don't you think I'd send it with the best valving the first time?". The absolute gall. There's hardly any feedback about their current product, so I'm cautious. When I tell him the travel I'd run(it's listed in their offerings), he immediately got cagey about details. I kinda zoned out for that, since I was pretty well over it.

If they work on "zero compromises, our way, bespoke only", then own it, right? Just weird. Of course he mentioned he's very direct too. Must have missed that. I explained I knew it wouldn't be perfect, but also $500 is a lot, so might look at the hybrid-coil pieces later. It felt like they were almost waiting for me to beg to buy their product.

I was hesitant to post this, but decided an honest "would-be-customer" feedback would be useful. I really wanted to change my mind on it, but it was such an alienating conversation, and I'd never talk to a customer that way. It felt...phony? Pushy? The covid-denial struck a nerve bad. Man, I really wanted to get over it and just order it, but how could I trust someone to own up to mistakes or issues after this?

VORSPRUNG_SMASHPOT

 

Smashpot works bloody amazing with one of Craig's cartridges.
Best 150/160 trailbike fork, I or any of my in weight range friends have ridden.
Not overly light though.

 

It only took 5 years to get my situation resolved , after I busted him here on the forums.
Wonder if he's gonna hit the like button?

 

Your mistake was the phone call. Order online, wait your turn and prepare for magic.

I mean, maybe not MAGIC, but Avalanche has tuned at least three shocks of mine and I bought their fork open damper kit. My experience with the product has been uniformly excellent. I did call once early on. I never did that again.

Despite the naysayers, Craig operates what appears to be a successful small business. It’s not corporate and — to be blunt — he’d likely be better off having someone else in a public-facing role. But if you have the experience to properly articulate what you’re looking for in suspension performance, who will get it.

 

Who will get it ?

 

I never had a problem with him. The shock I had was stellar, and after having him re-tune it twice (during the annual service) it was what I would consider the pinnacle of suspension performance. Like others have said, be aware of your actual riding level, and accurate in your description of it, and Craig’s product will literally amaze you. I never got into the weeds with him about specifics — just told him how I rode and what I needed from my suspension.

I suspect those that have had issues with him are folks that have a more technical understanding of the ins and outs of suspension. As a side note, I’ve observed that many of those aforementioned folks tend to have a pretty interesting ego.

 

Total horseshit. How much did he pay you to print such

 

I've used Craig many times. Just got a shock back for the wife's bike. She has a hard time figuring out how to tune her suspension and the shock on her Evil just didn't go well with her or the frame. First ride on it (after a 4 month lay off) she's riding chunk faster than she's ever done she thinks the shock is magic. He definitely knows what he is doing.

 

I find it interesting he can take the time to come on here and hit the like button for the posts in this thread about having a positive experience but can't find the time to acknowledge or respond to the nearly 50% of the posts that aren't so positive. But IME, that's typical Craig behavior, I'm sure he thinks those negative experiences are the customer's fault not his so there's no need to take responsibility.

 

I find it interesting he can take the time to come on here and hit the like button for the posts in this thread about having a positive experience but can't find the time to acknowledge or respond to the nearly 50% of the posts that aren't so positive.

Are you serious or just delusional???

No one's going to come in to a thread like this and subject themselves to a bunch of snowflakes hiding behind their keyboards who just want to pile on.

 

I also tried reaching out to him and was steered away. Are there alternative companies for custom shock/fork tuning/valving?

 

I’ve been really happy with Mike at the Shock Howse. His customer service is amazing, and I’ve been really happy with his tunes he’s done for me.