Managed to scrape my toe

[SunEye]

Yesterday afternoon on my favourite piece of French tarmac (at the moment), the D940 from Peyrat-le-Chateau to Seilhac in the Limousin region of France, I managed to scrape the toe of my boot on the tarmac as I was cornering at about 50mph.

I have to say I was pleasantly shocked. I wasn't trying to lean the bike over as far as possible, I was just enjoying my ride. With the reasonably high footpegs of the M1100 I never expected to touch any part of my body on the ground whilst cornering (I don't ride in a knee down, hanging off style).

I'm not posting to brag, really just to say that I'm impressed with a bike that can give me the confidence to ride like that because I know I'm not the fastest out there.

[J.P]

Well that's certainly as far as you want to lean the bike, I hope you have toe sliders. :)

[Mr Cake]

Well that's certainly as far as you want to lean the bike, I hope you have toe sliders. :)

Rubbish! :D

Well done SunEye! Welcome to the expensive world of scratching! It's possible that you're riding with "duck feet" though. Put the ball of your foot on the peg next time and see how you get on. If you already do that then I agolopise :)

C

[J.P]

And if you have your toe's on the peg, and you're still scraping them, then you're definitely leaning the bike a bit much. A correctly jutting knee touching down should be before the boots touch down.

[Mr Cake]

Good advice there, Julian! Gear lever and rear brake pedal are also good gauges. It depends how fat you are though. I scraped them a lot :)

C

[J.P]

Yes imagine Cakey if there was a competition for belly on tank scraping ?

[Mr Cake]

There was but I wasn't allowed entry because you can't tell where my ar5e ends and my belly begins!

C

[Scott1]

Interesting one this,

I've managed to get my toes down quite a few times on my 696, I don't know how much smaller the ride height and ground cleareance is to an 1100, I think it was Jenson above, who pointed out to me when we did some training recently, that I ride with my feet flat on the pegs but if I go further back on my toes I'm too cramped and it doesn't feel natural, perhaps the bike is too small, feels comfortable enough.

[Mr Cake]

I agree Scott, it felt weird for me at first. Can't ride any other way now. Keep at it and try to put it out of your mind. Stick with Jonas, he can ride a bike.

C

[d8mok]

I scraped my toe for first time on way to the TT this year. A combination of luggage weighting the bike down, and me being excited i think. Didnt expect it, and wasnt riding that fast really. I was probably riding duck feet though haha

[J.P]

Who am I !
I am Jason, no Jenson, no Jonas, no I am JPeeee !!

[utopia]

Its funny. I find it feels quite natural to have the ball of my foot on the right hand footpeg, but I struggle to keep the left one there.
This made for interesting progress through the devils elbow at the mallory trackday recently, where I was in constant danger of touching my toe down and inadvertently changing up a gear as a result.
Maybe its because I'm right handed ????
I was told yesterday that a famous racer (Phil Read, I think) eventually wore his little toe away like that, though I don't know if thats true.

[Funkatronic]

im quite bad one for dragging my toes

killed a set of boots at portimao then managed to wear right through the toeslider on my new boots at mallory

have invested in ceramic toesliders and a stivcky note telling me trying to keep my feet further back

[Gordon H]

Rally can ground his toes at a remarkably small degree of lean....... :rolleyes:

[Mr Cake]

Its funny. I find it feels quite natural to have the ball of my foot on the right hand footpeg, but I struggle to keep the left one there.
This made for interesting progress through the devils elbow at the mallory trackday recently, where I was in constant danger of touching my toe down and inadvertently changing up a gear as a result.
Maybe its because I'm right handed ????
I was told yesterday that a famous racer (Phil Read, I think) eventually wore his little toe away like that, though I don't know if thats true.

Sete Gibernau did that too! Ouch!

C

[MrsC_772]

Even my size 3 1/2s touched the ground a couple of times round Gerards at the UKMOC track day! I know I do ride with insteps not balls of the feet on the pegs, and I'm probably a bit duck-footed. Was a little disconcerting at the time, but my boots (and toes) survived the experience.

[uksurfer]

i scraped mine going round a roundabout, felt a bit odd to say the least, but i was hanging them out at the time :spin:

[Gordon H]

i scraped mine going round a roundabout

Shouldn't be in the playground without an adult - you'll spoil your best shoes!!

[LVC]

Check the chicken strips to give an indication of whether it's a duck feet issue or a real toe slider and then get that knee down - it's what French roads are made for ... at least they are around here/Le Mans ;)

[Albie]

Rubbish! :D

Well done SunEye! Welcome to the expensive world of scratching! It's possible that you're riding with "duck feet" though. Put the ball of your foot on the peg next time and see how you get on. If you already do that then I agolopise :)

C

I do as the photos prove. Quack flippin quack. I seemed to scrape around mallory hairpin. Im a touring duck chickin stripped carbon freak.:thumbsup:

[marchesini]

A correctly jutting knee touching down should be before the boots touch down.

A small story about when my toe touched down 'in the correct manner'.

I was at a Ducati track day at Rockingham on my 996 and was continually being frustrated by a Triumph T595 who I couldn't overtake. To set the scene, at Rockingham, before the start / finish straight, there is a hairpin - not unlike the Mallory one but about twice the size. I wasn't that experienced at the time (oh-er missus) and so didn't feel too confident about taking a non-traditional line around the hairpin.

So I was behind this Triumph and he slowed down so much for this hairpin, I was always running the risk of running up his arse. I tried several times to overtake on the inside but it ended up as a drag race down the straight where the similar power of the bikes and with him having the racing line, ended up with me trailing him for another lap :banghead:

After 3 laps of this, the red mist came down and thought to myself "when he brakes, I don't and then whatever happens ... happens". So, same thing happens, he brakes really early on the approach to the hairpin, and again I move to his inside and we begin the drag down the straight. As per usual, he has about 3 metres on me and I don't make any ground. He's on the outside of the track approaching the corner, I'm on the outside waiting for him to brake. He brakes hard, I don't and fly past him with the corner rapidly approaching....

"Sheeeet. This corner is coming up fast so I shift my weight over, hang the knee out and it touches down. Nice.... but although I hit the apex, I'm still running wide and heading for the gravel (metaphorically speaking - don't know if there was gravel or not but I wasn't optimistic about making the corner though).

At the moment, I remembered some advice along the lines of "these bikes will lean much further than you think. You'll lose your nerve before you run out of lean". So, with my knee scraping, i leant on the bars even harder, whereby my knee gets pushed back into the tank and then the toe touches down, together with the knee. I turn my head round towards the exit point and accelerate away leaving Mr Triumph eating my dust.

As I came of the track, a guy came up to me and says "I saw your pass. It looked the absolute bollocks. I saw you getting frustrated and really thought you were going to come off but you made it stick."

I think that has been the only time I had an inkling of what it must be like to be a 'proper' racer. I still have a 'huge' grin on my face as I write this and it must be 7 years ago now.

[J.P]

Imagine Marchesini, if you'd just stuck your elbow out too.....MOTOGP could be calling you. :)

[marchesini]

Imagine Marchesini, if you'd just stuck your elbow out too.....MOTOGP could be calling you. :)

I don't think so. I've got small elbows and I think I shat myself so much that I've got progressively slower year on year. I think I'll stick to the Moto GP on PS3, as the Moto GP this year has a tendency to send me to sleep. In fact, for the first time ever, I prefer to watch Formula 1 - mainly to see who Lewis Hamilton can **** off next but I digress ....

[J.P]

No, no, carry on. :)

[marchesini]

No, no, carry on. :)

Okay, I'll bite. Nothing to do with toes (www.toefetishandleather.com is a good site for that) but is it me but is Moto GP really, really boring nowadays?

[SunEye]

Well that's certainly as far as you want to lean the bike, I hope you have toe sliders.
I took the toe sliders off my boots when I bought them 9 years ago because I didn't expect to use them. In 36,000 miles on my Kawasaki ZRX1200 I can count on both hands the number of times I scraped the pegs/my feet.

It's possible that you're riding with "duck feet" though. Put the ball of your foot on the peg next time and see how you get on. If you already do that then I agolopise
I don't think that I ride particularly duck footed. When in town I ride with my feet forwards to cover rear brake and gear lever. Out of town I move my feet back. I tend to ride with the pegs just behind the ball of my foot. Having the pegs right under the balls of my feet bends my ankles and knees too much for comfort when I'm riding for 2-3 hours. However I have noticed that the pegs only come about two thirds of the way across the underside of my feet and my heels touch the frame that holds the pillion pegs (my boots are size 44), so maybe I am sticking my toes out?

And if you have your toe's on the peg, and you're still scraping them, then you're definitely leaning the bike a bit much. A correctly jutting knee touching down should be before the boots touch down.
I wouldn't want to get my knee down because my leathers don't have knee sliders or the ability to afix them. Hence my knees stay quite close to the bike and I don't hang off.

Check the chicken strips to give an indication of whether it's a duck feet issue or a real toe slider and then get that knee down - it's what French roads are made for ... at least they are around here/Le Mans
I've got about 2mm to 3mm of chicken strip on my rear Michelin Pilot Road 3. I'm much happier with them than the Bridgestone BT016 I had before. At Easter here in Limousin I blued the Bridgestones and had a couple of small front end slides. The Michelins have been much better for my riding style.

[Blah blah]

I regularly scrape both toes, and both Michelin Pilot Pures are all the way to the edge (no sliders on my draggin jeans else I'd get them down as well !)

[Twentytoo]

Since I've had the 696 in June I can't figure out how to ride it without toe scraping. Even on the local islands let alone the track. I was in Preston and enquired about raising the ride height with a 796 suspension linkage. The guy said this is one (cheap) way to do it although (as mentioned earlier in this thread) I should probably concentrate on a style change and go for need down rather than toe. And here's the problem.....on the ZX6 I had no problem hanging off...on the 696 I feel like I'm going to fall off...just can't get the hang of it...

[randall356]

It's funny you should say that. I could knee down on my CBR but I really struggle with the M696. I think its a mixture of the more upright riding position and the shape of the seat as when I'm gunning it I sit back more but the seat is quite wide back there.

[Thirdway]

Can also touch down by not using enough throttle on the turns. Tyres are designed to lower the gearing when they are leant over so even what feels like neutral throttle can be negative throttle. It causes the suspension to dip at the rear and reduces ground clearance, enough negative throttle and you get the front dipping same as braking and lose even more.

Check sag is correct as well. Mine doesn't touch down and been right to the edge of the tyres.