Have you ever scraped your pegs while going around a corner? Some will tell you that you are crazy and that it is very dangerous. Others will say that it is no big deal and half the fun of riding. The truth of this subject is like any other truth. It lies some place in the middle.

Scraping pegs comes at different points for different motorcycles. If you have a cruiser with running plates instead of footpegs, you will likely scrape much sooner than other bikes. Running plates are generally wider and much longer and often closer to the ground. Therefore, you can't lean as far without scraping. Bikes with pegs will scrape at different poitns depending on how they are designed. If you are riding one of the racing motorcycles and scrape your pegs, you are really leaning it out there.

Most motorcycles are equiped with a special bolt under the footpeg. This bolt is placed in such a way that it will take the brunt of any scraping your footpeg receives. Running plates usually don't have this bolt. Instead, running plates often have a ridge near the outside edge of the plate. This ridge is thicker than the rest of the plate and acts as a sled blade during a scrape. It serves the same basic function as the bolt on a peg. On some plates this ridge can be replaced while others have to replace the plate when the ridge wares down.

Both footpegs and running plates fold up. This protects the bike from catching if you happen to dip down into pot-hole or catch the edge of something sticking up from the road. If they didn't fold and you hit an imovable object at any type of speed, even a few miles an hour, the result would be to toss the entire motorcycle over to the other side. Then it would be up to the driver to hopefully recover without a crash. The odds are that if this happened on the road, there would be little chance of recovering. So it is a very good thing that the pegs fold up and back.

Now down to the brass tax... Is it crazy or cool to scrape while going around the corners? The answer is BOTH! If you are scraping it means you are reaching the limits of what your motorcycle can do for cornering. It really isn't a bad thing if you scrape knowing that it is coming or at least knowing that you are in that range. If you think you have plenty of lean left in you bike and you scrape, then you are probably going faster than you think and this could cause a serious problem because if you can't make the corner, you are out of room to lean over any further and a crash could be what you find at the end of the corner.

I wouldn't recomend scraping just for kicks but I also wouldn't say it is anything to be afraid of. There are times that I know the scrape is coming and I still jerk my foot away from the peg when it actually hits the ground. It is a natural reaction and as long as it doesn't cause the bike to jerk or causes you to change your track, it really isn't a big deal. Normally when I know I am going to scrape I will either put the ball of my foot up on the peg so my foot doesn't actually touch the ground or in some extreme cases I will even lift my foot completely off the peg. The best corse of action is if you know you are going to scrape before the corner, slow down and don't scrape at all. Bring the bike to a near scrape speed and angle. Then if you do touch down it will be rather light.

A light scrape will leave you some room for making corrections where a heavy scrape leaves little or no room at all for corrections.

One method for taking a corner faster without scraping is to shift your weight off the seat and lean to the inside of the corner. This works best on the racing style bikes. I am sure you have seen them ripping around corners at the track with their knee on the ground. Although you shouldn't do this type of move to that extreme ever on the street, the concept is the same.

By shifting your weight, the motorcycle can stand upright a bit more while still making it around the corner.

This move doesn't work very well on the very heavy motorcycles or the cruiser style bikes that normally have running plates. Those bikes see very little impact by shifting of rider. Some cruisers simply don't have the correct riding position to make this move possible. They have a very laid back riding position and to shift your weight off the seat and hang out into the corner would be very odd and likely dangerous. With the heavy bikes it is a matter of percentages. Shifting a 200 pound body 6 or 8 inches to one side or the other has very little impact on a 600 to 900 bound bike in motion. The net results of the shift is only a small percentage of the total weight and thereby offers little change in the overall tilt of the cycle in the corner.

So while you are out thre riding, if you find yourself leaning into a corner and your heart starts pounding because you think you might scrape, just relax and concentrate on making it through the curve safely. Don't worry about touching down. If it happens and you are going too fast well then there is little you can do. Hitting the breaks at this point would probably be more harmful than just riding out the scrape.

If you have never scraped and want to try it, be careful! Take baby steps. Work your speed up around corners just a little at a time. Scraping happens most on low speed corners say 15-25 mph when you are driving "slightly" over the posted speed. I would never tell anyone to go out and scrape your pegs but I would also never tell anyone not to because I do it all the time.

The trick is to know your bike, know the road and most importantly to know your own limits!