AHM Factory Services Suspension Revalve

What it is

• Suspension re-valve.
• Spring rate changes if necessary.

A suspension re-valve is in simplest terms, setting up a bike for a specific rider and their specific needs. When a manufacturer comes up with suspension settings, they do it with an average rider in mind. Average height, weight, ability, etc. If that doesn’t sound like you, or you’re using the machine for a different type of riding than it was set up for, there may be improvements to be had. In our case, we took our 2018 Husqvarna TC250, a machine designed for motocross, and started using it for more off-road type riding. In addition, some of us are a little on the plus side of average in regards to weight and height. Bottom line is we felt that finding someone who could help tailor the bike to our needs would be helpful.

How it works

• More progressive feel.
• Added plushness without losing bottoming resistance.
• Planted feel.
• Used in both GP and Desert racing.

There’s no shortage of companies that do suspension work and if you talk to ten riders, you’ll probably get ten different opinions on who does the best work. We’ve had the best results when we’ve worked with someone who is willing to provide some personal attention and keep working with us if it isn’t perfect right away. For the TC, we wanted to focus on setting it up for GP style events, specifically the Big 6 GP series in Southern California. Husqvarna has a couple of pro level riders competing in that series and AHM is involved with the 3Bros/STI/Husqvarna Team consisting of Zach Bell and Jakub Alvarez. Even though our needs are different than the pro level riders, working with a company that is very familiar with the events seemed like a good idea.

We sat down with Brandon at AHM and talked about what we thought we needed and listened to his suggestions. This is the most important part of the process. The rider has to know what he or she is looking for so the tuner can have a direction. Beware of suspension tuners who want to sell you the farm. It all starts with communication--that is a little bit more than weight, height and ability level. We wanted the suspension to be a little more off-road focused, but not lose its ability to perform on a motocross track. We were looking for the perfect happy medium. AHM did the work in a few days which included adding a one step heavier shock spring. An addition not necessary for the forks since that is controlled by an air pressure adjustment.

The results we’re just what we were looking for. They were able to give the suspension a more progressive feel which made it more compliant in the high speed chop without losing the firm feel and bottoming resistance. The bike gained plushness but still stayed high enough in the stroke to not wallow around and lose the precise feel of a motocross bike. The rebound felt a little slower which seemed to help give the bike a planted feel and kept the bike very stable at high speeds.

Since having AHM do the revalve, we have competed at several events at a wide variety of venues. The Big 6 series includes courses from the 80+ MPH 29 Palms course to the very tight and sandy Lake Havasu. As we’ve ridden the bike at all of these events, we’ve really come to appreciate how versatile it is. We’ve made some minor changes to the compression and rebound external adjustments as conditions required but for the most part, the bike has worked extremely well. Fine tuning suspension can often be a balancing act and it can be difficult to find settings that will work well in all conditions. With AHM’s revalve, we were very close for most conditions. Then it was just a matter of fine tuning for personal preference.

Overall we are very happy with the work AHM did for us. They definitely know how to get the most out of the WP components on the new KTM/Husqvarna’s and they were great to deal with. They took the time to understand what we were looking for and quickly found settings that fit our needs.