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Have been practicing slow turns in the neighborhood cul du sacs. Wasn't doing over 10mph.

I guess I got a little over confident and either leaned too much or tried to make it the turn too tight (don't know). Anyways, simultaneously I heard and felt a grinding noise and then felt my left foot catch on something and it was off the peg.

I gave the bike a little throttle and it pop'd up just fine.

I checked the left peg when I got home, but did see/feel a scratch on it. Thoughts?

hdkidder wrote:Have been practicing slow turns in the neighborhood cul du sacs. Wasn't doing over 10mph.

I guess I got a little over confident and either leaned too much or tried to make it the turn too tight (don't know). Anyways, simultaneously I heard and felt a grinding noise and then felt my left foot catch on something and it was off the peg.

I gave the bike a little throttle and it pop'd up just fine.

I checked the left peg when I got home, but did see/feel a scratch on it. Thoughts?

You scratched it with the road...on the metal...you can feel them...when you touch them...on the spot where it scratched the road.

What thoughts are you looking for?

Shorts wrote:What thoughts are you looking for?

Don't know really. Should I be worried about dragging a peg ? How often does it happen to experienced riders (in general)?

Just wondering how close I was to laying it down... It freaked me out a it and I'm probably over thinking it.

Usually what is being felt is the feelers on the peg dragging on the road.

I drag the peg quite a few times when taking a turn at a higher speed than the last time I did it to get a feel for the limits on my bike's cornering.

At first it can be startling but I've gotten used to it and I kinda like it. The feelers are not worn yet but I think they can be replaced easily. Shame no sparks come out when I drag them, but there are sparks when I drag my pipes (I need a special dip in the road for that one).

lol

Well, getting comfortable with how far the bike leans is a good thing. At low speed stuff, dragging your pegs is fairly impressive as you're counterweighting it at those speeds. At higher speeds and dragging pegs on a cruiser, it's best to slow your cornering speed, even gear down so you don't drag trying to make the curve.

At any rate, probably a good idea to know the bikes limits and stay within them. You don't want to get into the habit of dragging nice parts on the ground, you could eventually catch and toss you or be a costly repair. One of the things that cn happen when you drag parts is the bike will run up on that part and your tires can get separated from the ground and lose traction, and you will go down when that happens. So, use your brain on that when you do hear scraping.

Once you can drag pegs on one side as slow turns, try to flip over and drag pegs on the other side. Do a figure eight and drag pegs. Then you'll almost be ready for this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTO2s7wyrFs


It's not bad to do it and it does take a bit more skill. Work on getting to that point with precision and control. Work on your counterbalance and enjoy it... if you want to. Tight uturns are more of a convenience skill.

Dragging pegs isn't that big of an issue as long as your bike was made after roughly 1980 (someone correct me on the right date). After that point foot pegs were designed to lift when they started scraping. Before that they were rigid, could catch as shorts mentioned and lift your wheels off the ground. Wheels off ground equals bad.

Now a days the pegs are an indication that you are at/nearing the bike's lean limits. At speed you can compensate with different styles of leans to change the apparent lean of the bike for more ground clearance (you still maintain the same actual lean) but that's best learned in an experienced riders class and most of it should never be used for street riding.

well...

storysunfolding wrote:Dragging pegs isn't that big of an issue as long as your bike was made after roughly 1980 (someone correct me on the right date). After that point foot pegs were designed to lift when they started scraping. Before that they were rigid, could catch as shorts mentioned and lift your wheels off the ground. Wheels off ground equals bad.

Way before 1980. I don't know exactly when, but definitely long before that.

Now a days the pegs are an indication that you are at/nearing the bike's lean limits.

There's a lot of cases where you have quite a ways to go even with the peg down before you drag something hard enough to lowside or whatever. This is especially true of bikes with big peg feelers. It's not time to start really worrying until you're griding the exhaust or bodywork.

At speed you can compensate with different styles of leans to change the apparent lean of the bike for more ground clearance (you still maintain the same actual lean)

...with good technique the bike doesn't appear to be leaning less, it is.

but that's best learned in an experienced riders class and most of it should never be used for street riding.

There is varying degrees of involvement that range from simply NOT leaning the wrong way to actually hanging off. For most street riding people are content with getting their torso inside of the bike and possibly shifting their weight on the seat a little bit.

Here's a picture I stole from the VFRD that displays the difference very clearly between cornering like a chump who's gonna die and like a proficient rider:



The really big thing though is not to snap the throttle shut when you start to drag things. As soon as you do that the bike settles back down on it's suspension and you loose a bunch of ground clearance. What would have been some minor peg dragging turns into a lowside.

As far as what you're supposed to think when you drag a peg?

"Awesome."

Haha- I was talking in generalities thus

RideYourRide wrote:
Way before 1980. I don't know exactly when, but definitely long before that.

I had a 1978 Suzuki gs 750 that still had rigid mount pegs and a 1979 kz 650 with the same thing. They were also the first things I changed out. The reason I picked 1980 was my 81 kz 650 and xs 400 nonrigid pegs so I split the middle. Some manufacturers might have made changes but some of the big 4 still hadn't in the late 70's

There's a lot of cases where you have quite a ways to go even with the peg down before you drag something hard enough to lowside or whatever. This is especially true of bikes with big peg feelers. It's not time to start really worrying until you're griding the exhaust or bodywork.

True- but again not on all bikes and it depends how you have the bike setup- different tire profiles available for the same bike can have dramatically different results. It's why the rearsets for street legal sport bikes are lower than their racing counterparts, racing tires can take more lean.

...with good technique the bike doesn't appear to be leaning less, it is.

The bike is leaning less- hence more ground clearance, but the lean angle of the system (bike+rider) is the same, hence why you're still turning at the same rate.

There is varying degrees of involvement that range from simply NOT leaning the wrong way to actually hanging off. For most street riding people are content with getting their torso inside of the bike and possibly shifting their weight on the seat a little bit.

Well riding correctly is definitely important, yes and learning correct technique from a qualified instructor is the best way to do it. And you can hope off a bike like rossi or stay over it more like Kevin Schwantz. Either way, if you start needing that style because you need more ground clearance or lean in the turns then you're probably going too fast for an uncontrolled environment IMHO. For street riding you really don't need anything other than staying in line with the bike. Or maybe when I'm on the street I ride like a grandma

The really big thing though is not to snap the throttle shut when you start to drag things. As soon as you do that the bike settles back down on it's suspension and you loose a bunch of ground clearance. What would have been some minor peg dragging turns into a lowside.

As far as what you're supposed to think when you drag a peg?

"Awesome."

+1

I dragged a peg on my second day of the MSF BRC (not really on purpose, I was just remembering everything I'd read from Hough about cornering and decided up front I didn't want to be tentative with the throttle in a deep turn).

It was probably the most fun I had the whole day, and the instructor mouthed 'show off' at me on my way back to the line.

Unfortunately I didn't repeat my performance during the evaluation and lost a point due to low speed! Oh the indignity.

storysunfolding wrote:Haha- I was talking in generalities thus

RideYourRide wrote:
Way before 1980. I don't know exactly when, but definitely long before that.

I had a 1978 Suzuki gs 750 that still had rigid mount pegs and a 1979 kz 650 with the same thing. They were also the first things I changed out. The reason I picked 1980 was my 81 kz 650 and xs 400 nonrigid pegs so I split the middle. Some manufacturers might have made changes but some of the big 4 still hadn't in the late 70's

It depends on the manufacturer and model. I recall that my 70s KZ bikes had hinged pegs ('76-'79). The one thing I noticed that changed around the 80s was that more manufacturers started tapering the bottom of the peg and installing metal "scrape plates". This was a huge improvement, as the metal plate would (usually) scrape the pavement smoothly, while the old all rubber pegs would tend to grab when they touched down.