It seems I scrape the pegs a lot. Pretty frightening the first time, and I don't really like the feeling. I get the feeling the peg will get caught in something and throw the bike. Is this a realistic fear? Or is the weight and momentum of the bike enough to keep her on track?

On a sportbike, scraping a peg means you're pretty damn far over. But it's VERY easy to scrape on my forty eight. Just not used to it. Thanks for any advice!

 

you'll find that the stock pegs usually have a little finger sticking down from them...curb grinders. Just take it as a warning that you're gettin' low. Depending on where they're mounted, and how long the pegs are, you'll do it more often or less often. Unless you're actually catching them on a pothole or an actual curb, you should be fine. Flat asphalt or pavement won't high-side you.

And yes, it can be a startling thing to do it the first few times. You get a sense eventually for how low you can go without doing it.

Edit: go to a motorcycle rodeo where the cops do amazing things on their duty bikes. You'll wonder how the heck they stay up, with all the chrome grinding and scraping they do.

 

When I had the stock 48 pegs I ground all the way down to the rubber, took the whole metal bar they had on there right off just from scraping, never ever felt a kick. So I think you'll be alright, and our roads are terrible up here. Go out at night and scrape em up, you'll get addicted to seeing those sparks shooting out under you.

 

Nice, thanks. Yes, trusting the tires and the centrifugal force is one of those things they try to hammer into your head in the MSF course (figure 8 section, I'm looking at you), but it's still pretty unnerving. Maybe I'll go practice in a lot to get used to it.

 

I kinda like it. It's a fun sport! Had a female neighbor who's boyfriend couldn't do those things. He was a trucker. When he was outta town, she'd come down and exclaim "Uncle Bill, let's go scrape metal!!!"

 

Saw a guy here in cincy use some different kinda metal feelers that shot out sparks 2 feet out. Kinda crazy seeing it.

 

I used to scrape all the time but now I consider it a risk so I avoid it. There's a reason why people call the metal under most pegs feelers; their funcion is to tell you are starting to go low.

If you go too low you can hit the muffler to the ground too far and lose traction, also these tires don't have the same traction on the sides as sport bikes.

Scraping is OK if you don't go too far down AND you don't panic, but you can avoid scraping pegs just by moving your body slightly on the bike combined with the way you take curves.

This is my muffler and old pegs, now I avoid scraping pegs just with driving technique; same speed, same curves but no scraps.

 

I suppose it could be dangerous if you were to hit something but in 45+ years of riding I think I replace pegs at every tire R&R. Cannot seem to corner without scraping pegs. Just lift your leg up and keep on going.

 

That's the reason for the folding foot pegs, so you won't go down.
The older bikes like the 45 year old Triumph in my avatar has solid pegs, and will
take pressure of the tires and put you down.
When I raced the Daytona 200, ...I had solid foot pegs on my factory ride and they made my mechanics change them to folding pegs or I couldn't race on the wall.

 

Is it realistic? Yes! I removed the spikes from both my Buells as well as my Sporty, not least because they can catch your leg while stationary or just wheeling the bike around. With my SuperLow I have changed the shocks to longer ones and raised the forks, by reducing sag, so I now have better cornering clearance.