Question About Pivoting Front Pegs

 My Honda Shadow 600 has cylindrical aluminum front pegs.

This is a photo of a new peg:

http://www.dtashley.com/photos/2007/pics20071123/dscn_430.jpg

You can see that there is a bolt that goes into the outside end of the peg
and should make contact with the road before the rest of the peg does.  In
the photo, I haven't screwed it in yet.

My question is, why have this little bolt?

It seems that you'd be risking "snagging" the bolt in a surface imperfection
and generating a lot of force, and that it might be safer to let the peg
contact the surface because the peg has a larger diamater and is less likely
to snag.

Why the little bolt?

Datesfat

 Datesfat Chicks wrote:

It's sacrificial, allowing you to feel the bolt touching down without
scratching the peg.  Even if the bolt snagged hard, it's either going
to snap off or break the thing it snagged on,  It would be much worse
if the body of the peg caught and caused the bike to crash.

 
Proper use is to grind the end a tad to look like it has hit pavement.  Then
you buy a clone of your favorite racer's leathers and drag them behind your
cage to "break them in".  That will earn you as much respect among sport
bike riders as a 1% patch does among the Harley riders.

 
I.E. none.

 wrote:


Would you rather have the footpeg feeler touch the abrasive pavement
first, or would you prefer that you ground your toe off?

Local sportbike riders routinely remove the feelers because they
regularly grind the balls off the ends during spirited cornering in
Southern California canyons and on the race track. (1)

There was a story in one of the mainstream motorcycle magazines about
how an experienced rider warned a squid that he was going to have to
learn to ride with
the ball of his foot on the peg, instead of the arch.

The squid ignored the advice and snagged the toe of his boot on the
pavement while leaned far over. The author of the article claimed to
have seen a bloody streak on the pavement.

(1) I can't easily buy boots big enough to tuck my trouser legs into,
unless I buy reproduction Wehrmacht jackboots. I have to wear my
trouser legs outside my boots. I removed the feelers from my footpegs
because my trouser legs would occasionally slip down over footpeg and
feeler and I couldn't put my foot down at a stop.