Earlier this month, Josh stopped over in Paris, France, following his time in the UK covering Bespoked Handmade Bike Show. During his visit to the City of Lights, he visited multiple bike shops and fabricators. First up in a series of reports from his time there, Josh checks in with Marie and Laurent of Avalanche Cycles, who take an innovative approach to building bicycles and components from steel, stainless, and titanium.

Learn more about this duo of French builders below!

Neoclassical Design

I met Marie and Laurent of Avalanche Cycles a few years ago when I first covered Bespoked in London. They were showing a customer build that was a “gravel bike with randonneuring spirit.” The image of that bike stuck with me for its understated utility, clean lines, beautiful paint, and custom touches like 3D-printed dropouts.

That same year, the duo impressed Petor at Concourse de Machines with a prototype road bike featuring their unique in-house-designed dropouts, replaceable stainless liners, and even more innovative 3D-printed parts than on the Bespoked build.

We saw Avalanche again at last year’s Bespoked, where they displayed a “neorandonneur” that was part road, part gravel, and another part travel bike. This was one of the rare times I’ve seen a truss fork on a drop bar bike, and I instantly wanted to set out on tour with it, traversing cobbled and dusty central European roads.

While their show bikes have been head-turners, Marie and Laurent are wonderful folks – kind, humble, and inviting. We’ve had a running conversation about my connection to their home base of Paris and how I wanted to travel back to the city after a long time away. So they were at the top of my list to visit when I found out I’d be returning.

Avalanche Cycles

The Avalanche workshop is located in Montreuil, a suburb (known in France as a commune) about a five-mile cycle from where we stayed in Paris’ 9th arrondissement.

Outside the Boulevard Périphérique, it’s not a part of the city I’d typically think to ride to. But the experience of navigating over there was quite enjoyable. It provided some nice rolling terrain, views of eclectic architecture, and a number of locations we passed by that I plan to return to someday.

Marie and Laurent’s approach to building bikes stems from their background as professional industrial designers. Before founding Avalanche, they spent over ten years designing products for brands, primarily in the luxury and furniture sectors.

Back in their design school days, they were accustomed to making things rather than letting them sit idle on paper or forgotten on a hard drive somewhere. To reconnect with the design-build methodology, they turned to bicycles and now fabricate steel, stainless steel, and titanium frames, forks, racks, and components.

It’s important to point out that Marie and Laurent share all responsibilities at Avalanche – from customer evaluation to the finished frameset. As a woman, she is often mistaken as “just a painter” or “just a designer.” But you can find her and Laurent each divvying up their time across aspects of the process – from mitering tubes to welding, painting, and assembly.

In Marie’s words:

“We founded Avalanche to bring us closer to a universe and an object that is more in line with our values. We love the untold history of the bike, and the way it’s made hasn’t changed in decades. We want to use this strong legacy and classic aesthetic with more contemporary techniques like 3D-printing. This is why we like to work on frames with classic connections but by precisely drawing the connections and printing them in 3D.

We use the same process for other classic parts, like the truss fork. From the start, we wanted to design our own dropout, fittings, yoke, to make each bike specific and recognizable. We paint all our bikes ourselves to push the customization of each machine as far as possible.”

Titanium Gravel Bike with Truss Fork

Marie’s personal titanium gravel bike exemplifies the design and construction methods Avalanche is putting out these days. It contains various 3D-printed parts designed and printed explicitly for Avalanche’s titanium models. The dropouts, on which the Avalanche mountain branding silhouette can be discreetly seen, allow internal integration of the rear derailleur and dynamo lighting cables. Additionally, the printed seat cluster hides an integrated bolt for tightening a seat post.

Then there’s the titanium truss fork. Taking cues from classic truss forks, Avalanche designed and printed key junction sections, which they then connected with titanium tubing to obtain elegant lines in a contemporary form. Functionally, the truss concept balances hard braking forces in loaded or steep-and-fast scenarios while also offering a compliant ride quality for gravel and long road tours alike.

All paint work was also done in-house. Marie commented that this one was particularly meticulous, both in choosing shades of natural colors and then matching with colors of accompanying componentry. The build ultimately came together with the addition of a greenish Ingrid crankset and ochre Nova Ride bottom bracket.

Steel / Stainless Lugged Neoclassic Randoneur

Laurent had just put the finishing touches on this gorgeous customer build as we visited the workshop. A fairly new direction for Avalanche, they designed the 316L stainless steel lugs 3D-printed to fit Columbus HSS Spirit tubes. Unlike the constraints of building with traditional lugs, 3D printing allows them to design a fully custom geometry around any combination of tubing profiles and componentry standards. This includes the custom 3D-printed stainless steel dropouts that accommodate UDH compatibility.

The fork and racks are also fully custom-made in stainless steel. They’re designed specifically for a bag set selected by the customer. The paint, also done in-house, is inspired by the customer’s admiration for vintage Citroën 2CV Delage autos.

Cargo Cages and More

Marie and Laurent have been prototyping a few made-in-house components, which they will roll out over the next few months. Their first offering is a collection of anodized cargo cages that bolt to three-pack bosses on fork blades. Weighing only 33 g each, the cages can hold up to 3 kg. Pricing is €55.00 for one, or €100.00 a pair. Anodized colors are €20 more. 

Keep an eye out for additional innovative accessories from Avalanche in the coming months.

See more at Avalanche Cycles.