I have used this back for just about everything: 50 mile xc races, Vapor Trail 125, and longer 6-12 hour days in the mountains. Granted I work for Ergon USA, so you can take this review how you want. I have been using this pack for 3 years now…and have seen the many changes in its design. The pack excels with weight…the more weight the better. The design of the pack puts all the weight on your hips. The rest is on your shoulders. The shoulder harness is on a ball-joint system, so it moves with your body allowing free range of motion. I am only going to give this pack 4 stars. Why you ask? Because as an endurance rider and racer you need to remove the pack to get into it. There are no side pockets. But for future additions, this is being added. Most likely for ’09 and ’10 model year packs.

I agree with Jeff. I have used this pack on just about every ride for the past 14 months and love it. This Summer I tried a few rides with the Osprey Talon 22 and the extra capacity is nice but the Ergon is far superior for holding the weight, keeping my back cool, and not making my back tired. Their new BC3 30 liter pack is about to come available and that is what I will be using for all of my self supported rides and adventures without panniers! ~jb

I agree with all of the points mentioned above. I used this pack in the 2009 CTR and loved it! Lining up Sunday morning was actually the first time I had used it as it only came the night before. It had plenty of room for gear and food and was exceedingly comfortable and natural feeling on the back. A couple of cool aspects that weren’t mentioned. 1. You can wear it without your arms in the straps at all and it rides nicely on the hips during non technical/road stuff. 2. You can hook the “exoskeleton” on to your saddle and it helps to pull the bike up steep hike-a-bike sections. Took some mastering but it was a cool sensation that helped take weight off of the rear end of the bike.

I don’t want to sound too negative here, but I gotta say this pack just doesn’t work for me at all. First, I do like the fact that it has a nice padded hip belt (like a backpacking pack) that you can sinch down and get a lot of the weight off of your shoulders/back and onto your hips; but that’s all I like about it. I have the 2009 version and the pockets/layout/features are really poorly thought out. I removed the helmet holder/strap thing on the outside (what in the world is the point of strapping the helmet on the outside of your pack) and replaced it with a bungee cord so that I could strap things to the outside of it). And I did some other modifications. But it still ain’t right. The liquid in the bladder sloshes audibly sloshes around when riding. Plus, the pockets are just silly. I think the main problem is that it is an external frame back. Do you remember these from backpacking 25 years ago? Yeah, there’s a reason they disappeared in favor of the internal frame packs. Plus, to top if off the zipper pull came out of its track after a couple of weeks. Like I said, I just haven’t had any luck with this thing. Maybe the 2010 version is better. Anyone want to buy mine for cheap ($20)?

Oh, I did want to mention that I like the pack’s built in rain cover.

Matt, Still want to unload your BD2? I’m interested.
Mike Connair
mikeconnair@verizon.net