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Blue Ridge Racing Stage 3 Tool Bag

Since I have been away from motorcycling for 15 years, I had pretty much nothing in the way of trail tools and emergency stuff, other than the Camelback TransAlp hydropack that I wear when bicycling in the woods. It contains survival equipment like space blanket, compass, first aid kit, etc, but that wasn't enough to fix a busted dirt bike 15 miles from the truck - I needed compact tools and a good bag to carry them in. After reading the Dirt Rider review and studying the specs at the BRR website, I decided on the Stage 3 kit, since it offered a good selection of high quality tools and a versatile well designed bag that can be worn as a fanny pack or mounted on the rear fender. I chose the latter, since I plan to wear the backpack to carry water, spare clothing and survival supplies .

The bag set up as a fanny pack. The workmanship is solid and the ballistic nylon fabric and heavy duty zippers feel indestructable. I have worn fanny packs for many years, so it felt natural to put this one on, but it is HEAVY and I really don't see how anyone could wear this on a long ride when the terrain calls for lots of standing.

The waist belt sections attach to the bag with velcro strips concealed under the reinforced cloth panel. The actual attachment is rather flimsy, but in practice it seems to work very well. The adjustable straps on each side carry the load, so I believe the risk of having the bag depart from the rider appears to be minimal. Please note that I have NOT ridden with the pack in this mode!

The waist belt sections removed from the bag. I was sorry to lose the two zippered compartments.

As delivered, the parts aren't where I would like them to be. This is how they come from the factory. The axle wrench is a 27mm/ 19 mm combo. You may choose from many different sizes when you order.

The center section is for hand tools, and this outer pocket is for the CO2 tire repair kit, tow strap, lighter, your wallet or cell phone, etc. There is a fair amount of extra volume available.

The very nifty SOLO Adventurer Lighter with compass that comes in the Stage 3 kit. The 3700 degree F flame is adjustable and sounds like a miniature jet engine. I am sure you could solder with this if necessary.

SOLO Adventure Lighter

The sliding T handle socket set is pretty cool, and is high quality. It contains a full assortment of screwdriver, hex and small sockets.

The multi-tool is not as well equipped as my Gerber, but it does have the adjustable wrench and a usable pliers, as well as 2 blades and a Philips screwdriver.

I carefully laid out the bag position on the rear fender of my 2005 525 EXC, making sure that there was enough space between the back of the seat and the bag to slide the seat pan off the front mount. Blue Ridge recommends positioning the bag so that the outer flap opens to the left side of the motorcycle. The mounting panel in the bottom of the bag is stout plastic and will flex to match the contour of the fender. The inner fender intrudes into the mount bolt area, so correct positioning of the bag on the fender is very important. The two rear bolts have to go through the wire loom/ reinforcing channels of the inner fender.  I was concerned about possibly drilling through a tail light wire, so I dropped down the inner fender for a look...

And found that the tail light wire loom runs along the right channel. The right rear mount hole for the bag will go through at the arrow

like this. I temporarily moved the wires to the center of the inner fender, away from the drilling area,  drilled 4  pilot holes followed by the full sized holes.

I bolted down the bag, making sure that the wires were correctly routed and not pinched by the right rear bag bolt. The rear holes require longer screws than come with the bag because of the inner fender channels. I installed a couple of 1/4-20x1 1/4 stainless Philips head screws until I can obtain some 6x30 mm countersunk screws. The screws need to be flush to prevent chafing on the foam T-handle panel.

With the bag fully opened up, the tools are very accessible. The outer pocket is kept off the muffler by the two adjustable inner straps. Unfortunately there is nothing to keep the two external cinch straps off the muffler. I have read one report of melted straps, so I will have to be careful. The clear map/ registration pocket opens up to the left side of the bike where the contents are easy to read from a normal dismounted position.

Done! The bag looks great, but it does make it harder to swing your leg over the seat. The two extra-long cinch straps allow you to carry additional gear on top of the bag, and keeper clips keep the excess webbing from flopping around. I later removed the pull cord from the rear zipper so it would not pound on the fender.

UPDATES: 07/28/05

After 3 rides I conclude that I LIKE this kit!

Mounting/ dismounting: Some owners have complained about contacting the bag with their right foot when mounting/ dismounting, but so far it simply has not been a factor for me. I think in very tight technical terrain it could be a serious problem, but for open country/ dual sport riding it works fine. However, I have noticed that my particular style is to mount with my right leg bent at the knee, so my foot gets nowhere near the bag. If you have a stiff legged mounting style you should probably avoid a fender bag entirely.

Straps: The cinch straps can possibly melt on the hot muffler when disconnected. Partial fix - don't unclip the buckles, but loosen the adjusters and slide the straps to the front and rear of the bag. This doesn't completely eliminate the possibility of melting, but it does help. You just have to be vigilant!

***Tool Problem***: The spark plug socket is completely useless as delivered!!! The socket is thicker walled than the KTM tool, and while it can be worked down into the spark plug well and onto the plug, once the plug is loose, there is NO way to get either part out of the head. There is simply too little clearance. Fix: carefully file away a few mils of the aluminum casting on each side of the spark plug well, and sand out the file marks with fine sandpaper. After this easy mod, the socket works GREAT with the t handle, extension and u-joint from the kit. DON'T RIDE YOUR KTM UNTIL YOU CHECK YOUR SPARK PLUG TOOLS. If you need to remove your plug in the woods you might regret not doing this!

I consider the spark plug socket problem to be a very serious flaw, and I emailed BRR about it. Their response is that they can't possibly check all bikes to make sure every tool works 100%, but I really think they need to include a warning to KTM owners. I am sure there are some owners out there who are riding around with a tool that will not work on their bikes!

Update 05/04/06:

I really didn't like the stock mounting system - the bag base ends up being sucked down into the shape of the fender curve, making it hard to keep the socket set in the foam retainer. The plastic inner fender collapses under torque loads from the fasteners and also the movement of the bag. It also didn't seem very sturdy. So I designed a better mounting system:

The inner fender is hollow where the bolts pass through, and the area around the holes collapses with use. I installed small clay dams at the ends of the wire channels and taped in small pieces 1/4 ID nylon tubing to leave a clear path for the wires to lay in, and filled the channels with epoxy. I then filed the filler to the same contour as the top of the inner fender and re-drilled the holes. Now the fender is reinforced and the holes can't collapse.

I made a base plate out of 1/8 inch aluminum plate, and drilled it for lightness. I mounted it using longer 1/4 inch stainless screws and half inch long nylon spacers, trimmed to the correct angle and length to match the top of the fender.

Here's the plate in place, without the bag. The mounting bolts will go through the base of the bag as well as the plate.

The finished bag sits a little bit higher than before, but it is more solid, dead level, and now has bungee anchor points (the nylon spacers), so I can strap my jacket to the top if necessary. The bag is still a heavy sucker for that aluminum KTM sub-frame - mounting it to a solid luggage rack would be a lot more bulletproof - but this seems like an economical answer and it seems to work well.

Why is the kit so darn heavy?

Coming from a bicycling background, I am a fairly strong example of a "weight weenie" - I always look at the weight of a part and consider its value vs its usefulness; or I consider a replacement that weighs less, in which case I try to figure the cost/ benefit ratio. In other words, that new titanium widget may be a lot lighter, but is it worth $x.xx? Dirt bike riders tend to do this automatically because excess weight affects handling and performance, and makes the bike just that much harder to pick up.  A cruiser rider just doesn't care that 30% of his bike is sheer dead weight.

I decided to weigh the components of the BRR kit to see where all the weight is, and what I could safely leave behind or swap for a lighter tool. Items in RED I removed or exchanged for a different part, listed near the bottom.                        

CONCLUSION:

So, the BRR guys have apparently done a pretty good job in selecting tools for this kit. I had to replace the axle wrench with the one from the KTM tool kit in order to get the shock spring aduster and the additional wrench sizes, and I had to add the 13 mm KTM wrench in order to be able to adjust my chain! Tossing out the little storage bags saved about 1 ounce..... not worth the effort IMHO. I think BRR should consider the axle wrench to be optional, so KTM owners can save having to buy a $20 tool they don't need. And they also need to supply a couple of longer "universal" mount bolts that can be cut to length for applications like the EXC.

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