Avalanche In Oceanside:
Chris and Bev Sanders stop in for a visit.
by Robyn Hakes
10/12/98

Last week, SNOWboarding Business had an opportunity to chat with Chris and Bev Sanders, founders of Avalanche Snowboards.

What brings you two to Southern California?

Bev: We just decided to take a little vacation and come down here to surf. We wanted to get away from the sharks. [There was a recent attack in Northern California]. And I wanted to check out the Roxy Wahinie Classic Surf Contest at San Onofre.

What's new with Avalanche these days?

Chris: We've got some secret things going that we can't talk about yet. Actually, we've been working with Tom Burt and we've already finished two shapes for his "Fall Line" board series. There'll be five models in the line. The way it's been working is Tom's been coming up with his own dimensions: the nose shape, the waist width, the tail shape and so on—and we plug them into the CAD [computer program]. He's the only guy on our team who comes up with his own dimensions for his boards.

Tom and I have completely different ideas on board design so we've had quite a few--you could say lively--discussions.

Bev: Tom's a math teacher, so he really knows how to explain things well. It's nice to have a rider who knows what he wants out of a board.

All our riders are incredible though. Todd Davis, Snow Peterson, Damian and Tom.

This is the first hands-off season for you two. How does it feel to have all the shipping handled for you out of the A Sport office?

Chris: Well, we haven't heard any complaints, so I guess everything's going smoothly. We as a company have been notorious for good customer service, so it was rough for a couple of weeks in the beginning, handing over those reins.

You always worry when you shift a major part of your company like we did. But it's actually worked out better than I ever imagined.

So now what's the Benicia office working on?

Chris: We're basically the art and sales center for Avalanche. We also work on the graphics for all the other A Sport lines if they ask us to.

We worked on graphics for wakeboards this summer. That was different. Their ideas are so different than snowboarding. You can't do anything too macho for those guys.

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