Peg work for better leg work on the CRF.

After my recent race, my desire to get faster had me looking for more practice and for practical motorcycle upgrades. When not looking at my various calendars to find the next race or weekend days I could set aside for time at the track, I am cruising Craigslist, eBay and many other sites for go-fast parts. Some of those parts were ways to improve my CRF's footpegs. Foot placement can be critical to maintaining good body posture. Good body posture is very important to getting a clean slide through the fast turns of the short-tracks I ride. I managed to find something I was looking for while out and about on the internet. Here is what I did over a couple of nights in the garage after work.

These were the parts I found. They are Bates rubber footpeg covers for some vintage bikes like Triumphs that have blade type foot pegs. The ones in this picture are from a vendor on eBay. I got a mix of long and short. The long is a standard length footpeg while the short looks like a cut down long that is about 1" shorter. I got the mix because I wanted to see if I could get some additional ground clearance on the left side of the bike while it is tipped over in the turns. I was also thinking that I could use the long one on the right side footpeg in place of the OEM one that is on there now.

These are the pegs that came with the bike. The left picture is the OEM MX style Honda CRF foot peg. It is nice and grippy for an MX boot or the rubber soled road race boots that I wear for flat tracking. The right Picture is the left peg set-up that has been modified for flat track. Since we wear steel shoes on our left boot, we need a rubber footpeg in place of the stock steel MX style peg to keep our foot from slipping off at the wrong time. This combination keeps me locked onto my pegs and helps with my body position. On the straights, I am practicing sliding back on the seat to get my weight over the rear tire for better traction. In the corners I get my "ahem" boys up as close to the gas tank filler cap as I can. This is so that when I tip the bike into the turn, I put my weight on the outside of the bike while simultaneously pushing the bike down with my left hand. Having my weight more forward lets the back end of the bike come around into the slide characteristic of the awesomeness of that is flat track.

I started with modifying the left peg. I pulled off the existing rubber peg cover. I knew that the peg rubber was in bad shape, one of the reasons why I started this project. The actual peg looks to be a cut down version of the stock MX footpeg. I haven't had any issues with the peg, but I didn't like that it was in this condition. It looked like I could remove the peg from the chassis and then rework it a bit with my sander and angle grinder to get a better fit for the new rubber cover.

After pulling the peg from the chassis, I could see that not only would I have to do some grinding and shaping. I would also have to clean up some rust and replace a few things like the washer and cotter pin as well. The cotter pin basically disintegrated in the grip of my pliers. Eventually the peg could have vibrated off the bike taking away the resting spot for my steel shoe. After my day with Eric Bostrom at his flat track camp, I know I don't want to burn out my leg muscles trying to hold my steel shoe up off the ground for a whole race! Everything else look in good condition. I marked up some areas on the peg to shave off to get the better fit I was looking for. After that I broke out my power tools and went to town with my sander and grinder.

After working the peg with the angle grinder and my Harbor freight 1"x30" belt sander I had thinned down the cut down stock peg enough to fit smoothly and snugly into the short peg cover. At one point I had a piece of griding debris fly off and hit me in the eye under my safety glasses. My wife managed to dig the offending chunk of metal from my eye socket. After flushing my eye out, I used my MX goggles as a better set of safety glasses to finish the job. You can see that this project turned out well and looks good. Testing with my steel shoe showed absolutely no problems and I walked away happy. Next on the list of possible peg work is to possibly raise the left peg for even more left side ground clearance. I also want lower the right side peg and find a way to change the angle of the rear brake lever. Lowering the rear brake will give me a bit better control in the sliding turns.

Well, not as exciting as racing, but a fun project none-the-less. I just enjoy getting out to the garage and playing with my tools. Other improvements I am pondering are new tires, a new handlebar and some different grips. I need to think about getting some My Motorbike Obsessions cowl graphics too! Anyways friends, ride safe and see you soon!

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