Total Motorcycle Community Forums

What was your experience like?

I have to admit that my first time, this past Friday, was a complete surprise to me. My motorcycle has pretty good clearance and I'd never done it before in some sharp turns. Anyway, it startled me good and I almost went off the road at 110 km/h. After that I had nerves for about fifteen minutes until I got into Hudson's Hope and sat down for lunch.

I've read before that it's a good idea to practice scraping your pegs so that you're used to it when it happens, but I'd never done it before, even when I had speed going through 90 degree turns in town. I tried to do it again on the way home and couldn't get the pegs to scratch, although I did momentarily lose traction with my front tire.

Wow, cool, and great that you recovered pretty well.

This is an interesting article on how to react if you drag a peg. http://www.msgroup.org/Tip.aspx?Num=045

I've always wanted to practise it for reasons you mentioned, and to have more confidence in my bike's limits, but I don't really know where would be a good place to go about it.

Try leaning into the turn rather then staying upright on the bike, or leaning out of the turn. This will increase your cornering clearance.

Sev wrote:Try leaning into the turn rather then staying upright on the bike, or leaning out of the turn. This will increase your cornering clearance.

I always lean into turns properly rather than pushing my bike into a lean. Thanks for the advice though.

That is a good article, Grey Thumper. Very informative

I was totally freaked out the first time, but a few minutes later I was like "cool". Now I try to do it to get "practice" but I never seem to get it over far enough.

Ivan M wrote:That is a good article, Grey Thumper. Very informative

Glad you liked it Ivan. Check out the rest of the site, the guy has lots of pretty interesting (if occassionally controversial) articles.

Never scraped a peg. Just knees.

Grey Thumper wrote:

Ivan M wrote:That is a good article, Grey Thumper. Very informative

Glad you liked it Ivan. Check out the rest of the site, the guy has lots of pretty interesting (if occassionally controversial) articles.

I read about thirty of his articles. Great stuff, all of it.

Leaning into the turn farther than your bike will get your peg off the ground at the same speed, assuming the bike isn't tremendously heavy. Leaning away from the turn (trying to sit upright) will cause your pegs to drag earlier, that is, at a slower speed or less sharp turn. This is because you will have the same lean angle for the combined center of gravity (bike and rider).

For more info visit the following motorcycle safety site. http://www.msgroup.org/Tip.aspx?Num=045

The reason your pegs are set where they are however, is to keep you from leaning the bike further and causing your tires to lose traction from taking a turn too fast. Go to http://www.msgroup.org/Tip.aspx?Num=166 for more info.