I’ve been running an Avalanched DHX 5.0 air shock for the past 2 weeks or so. It replaced a Loco tuned Float R that I had been running for approximately 9 months, and before that I had a Stendec tuned CCDB coil, and a Pushed Marzocchi Rocco TST R coil. I have also been lucky enough to spend some time recently on a bike similar to mine fitted with a CCDB CS Air.
Once I’d made the decision to buy a new shock I knew that I wanted an air shock, with coil shock performance (or as close as), and I wanted as little faff as possible. No climb switches, no pro-pedal or CTD, and preferably no multi-adjustments on each damping circuit. The CCDB Air actually came very close, but a friend of mine got me looking at Avalanche after I had a spin on his bike which was fitted with an Avalanched Marzocchi 55 RC3 Ti fork, and DHX 5.0 air shock. I was suitably impressed, so after a couple of calls to Craig at Avalanche to discuss various options I settled on the DHX air. Although there’s also a new RP23 mod available if you want to go for a lighter shock.
It is still early days but so far the shock feels pretty damn good. It’s set up with 30% sag, which feels bang on out on the trails. In the car park test it offers up its travel really easily when you push down on the seat, which makes you think it’s going to blow through its travel on slow speed big hits, or maybe it’ll pack down on faster gnarly stuff, yet it doesn’t. It always remains composed, and uses just the right amount of travel for each situation. Avalanche did a great job setting the shock up for me. I’ve had to tweak the air pressure slightly, as I’m a little heavier than I thought, and I’ve also increased the rebound slightly as I felt it was a wee bit slow on techy DH runs, but that’s all.
Cost wise I paid $150 (£92) for a good condition DHX 5.0 air shock from a chap in the States, plus $6 to have it shipped to Avalanche.
$199 (£121) for the SSD upgrade
$30 (£19) for a replacement Floating Piston (quite often required on second hand shocks, but not always)
$51 (£31) shipping to UK with TNT
Duty and Tax has still to be confirmed by TNT but it looks like it will be around £12.55 duty at 4.7%, and £55 VAT at 20%.
All in cost £335.
Not cheap, but cheaper than a new CCDB, Float X or Vivid Air, and it is effectively a brand new shock with custom internals.
If you do a search on the forum member ‘messiah’ you’ll find a few threads on Avalanche stuff.