Dear Blue Ridge Racing,

I thought you might enjoy hearing about one of my riding adventures that involved your products. On a recent ride in Tellico, NC I had the opportunity to help drag my riding buddy’s bike from what appeared to be an easy stream crossing. Although the water was moving briskly, it was crystal clear and looked like a manageable 1 1/2 to 2 foot deep crossing. And it was, if you took the right line. Well, we both screwed it up. The clear water gave us a false since of security and we both found ourselves crotch deep in 45 degree water trying to navigate over 18 inch boulders. Eventually, gravity kicked in and a swimming we went. At first my biggest concern was if anyone else was watching. That was soon followed by my fears that I would never be able to find my clackers again. Did I mention the water was cold?

After wrestling a KTM 520 and a Yamaha 450 from the icy waters, with the help of the tow strap included in the kit, we were faced with several challenges, hydro-lock and a cracked clutch cover. The Yamaha sucked 450cc of water into the cylinder and as the bike fell over one of the boulders cracked the side cover. The carb, air box, and exhaust where also completely full of water. As we were 15 miles from the truck and had to ascend several thousand feet back over a number of mountains, we had only one option. Purge and repair.

Just like most off-road riders and racers, we both have massive tool boxes in our toy cluttered garages, and we even carry a well stocked tool box in the truck. In the 35 years I have been riding and racing motorcycles I have put together countless emergency tool kits, rolled, stuffed, wedged, and packed in any and everything I could buy or make. I have always had to compromise on what I could pack because the self-rolled kits simply were too heavy, too bulky, and uncomfortable. Not to mention that they were never convenient to use as I would have to dump everything on the ground and pick through the pieces in the dirt.

Recently I had the good fortune to find Blue Ridge Racing Products on a late night web surfing expedition. My first thought was here we go again, another crappy mouse trap ill-conceived in the minds of tool geeks who would need training wheels to ride a motorcycle and with no clue about our world or our needs. A one size fits all approach. You know, “it slices, it dices, and makes julienne fries” only to find out the Popeeler wasn’t much better than a rock and a stick for fixing broken motorcycles miles from your truck. For years I have always wished someone would take the same approach to survival gear for motorcycle riders that high quality mountaineering innovators have for adventure trekkers and mountain climbers. Much to my surprise, finally, you did.

My buddy stood looking at his drowned blue rat wondering how in the heck we were going to dismantle it and make it run again using the stock tool kit that he had augmented with and a hand full of extra tools. As an added bonus, the side case was weeping a fare amount of oil. Fortunately, I recently purchased a stage 2 kit from you. I broke it out, draped it across the rear fender and we had everything we needed to get the job done neatly packaged and laid out as if we were working from our tool boxes in the garage. We laid the bike on its side to move the oil away from the side cover, scuffed it up with a “soft” rock, wiped it clean, mixed up some quick steel and smeared on a patch. Although I have fixed many things with quick steel, I never thought to include it in my riding gear. The patch dried nicely in just a few minutes and the leak was fixed. After standing the bike on its tail to drain the exhaust, in less than 5 minutes we had the bike stripped down to the frame, spark plug out, carb off, and pumping water out. We used the high powered waterproof lighter to dry the plug and the float bowl, then reassembled the bike and in short order we had “fire in the whole”. We could not have done it any faster if we had been standing in our shops at home. We even used the handy flat rolled duct tape to seal up the air box better as we had several more stream crossings to navigate on the way back to the truck.

We had calculated our ride to end just before dark and with little room to spare. If we had not been prepared with your stage 2, right down to the quick steel, we would have been forced to abandon the bike and ride double back to the truck, only to make the 6 hour round trip home and back the next day. If he had been riding alone he would have spent the night walking those 15 miles in the dark, in wet cloths and riding boots, and in temperatures dropping below freezing. Not a good way to end the weekend.

Thanks for delivering what you advertise. Hope you enjoy the photos.

Cheers,

JB

PS: The case repair is still holding up 12 rides later.