Lower Cost Light Footpeg Alternative

I ordered a set of pegs for the Raga to check them out from rypusa.com (Ryan Young Products). I saw the S3 alternatives there and RQ Products under its own menu pick under For Your Bike.

The RQ pegs Ryan said are OEM Sherco. Very light and universal to all modern bikes (the bag said they were for the 4RT). Here is the RQ pinned to the footpeg mount of my Raga, with the S3 peg that came on it sitting to the left:



The RQ pegs cost significantly less than any of the S3 pegs, are they forged aluminum! Forging produces the strongest parts, which is why your aluminum kick start and shift levers are forged and not cast. How to know a forging from a casting? Forgings have a wide 'flash line' around the part showing the gap between the forging dies. This flash is sheared off after forging, leaving a shear look to the flash line. Forging is why these pegs lack the bridging of the machined S3 pegs in the pic, which have strengthening webs. The open center could make the forged pegs more vulnerable to bending or even breaking in a massive crash impact, but being forged, they are more likely to bend than break off.

They are lighter than the S3 pegs and roughly 2-1/2X lighter than any steel peg. Sorry, my gram scale broke so I can't provide a specific weight.

Another thing I like about the RQ pegs is they are longer from the pin center to the outside curve than the S3 pegs, allowing your feet to stand out a little wider on the bike without you foot feeling on the outside edge. Width is about the same as S3. The platform is correctly low and not raised. Nice big teeth. The slip-in sleeves are quality items in machined stainless steel.



I preferred the red anodized pegs (check out all the colors), but Ryan currently had stock silver, my second alternative. I placed the order just two days before I received them, and was not over charged for S&H! So far the RQ pegs look like the best weight-performance-cost alternatives in replacement pegs.

I bought some Raptor Titanium pegs recently and love them. They cost me an arm and a leg, but the titanium will not wear out, they will remain crisp and will follow me from bike to bike so that will help with the "investment".

Sure looks like either one won't cake up with mud.

These are awesome, trick, and WAY expensive being titanium weldments! They will be stronger than forged aluminum pegs. The only penalty over forged or machined aluminum is weight. Here is a way to compare weights from densities: If aluminum is 1.0, titanium is 1.6 times heavier than aluminum, and steel is 2.8 time heavier than aluminum. The strongest pegs are steel, but also the heaviest.

Raptors are 350 grams. I wonder if that even matters much since that weight (or lack of) is so low on the bike.
I'm carrying 1,000X that in my camelback.

I would have thought the most important thing here is that aluminium pegs will often break if they suffer a hard impact, steel or Ti wont.

I like the grip of the Raptors. Like I said, the weight can't make much difference being carried this low. Hell.... I'm looking into a lead skidplate. Just try knocking me down when I get that sucker mounted up!

That's one heavy camelback.

Then your kick start lever and shift lever should be made out of steel. Oh wait! They probably are

Kickstarts and gear levers arent subjected to the type of heavy impacts footrests are quite often. Just doesnt seem that great an idea to risk the hassle related to a broken rest, simply to save a few grams?

But as weight reduction is now something thats used to sell trials bikes, I can see why many people are of the view that saving maybe 200-300 grams is so very important.

I broke my Ti S3 pegs on a bad crash into several pieces (pegs didnt cause the crash - that was rider stupidity). After that, I went with the much beefier Raptors. I swap them bike to bike as well and keep the old ones for when I resell the bike. I also use the old Hebo (Big billet block design) handelbar clamps after my trick S3 clamps spun the bars (bolts were tight, they had a very low clamp area). The new S3 design is much better - so I think they also figured that out. Unfortunately in my case, after the crash.

By S3 titanium pegs do you mean the aluminum pegs with the 'titanium' anodize finish? I see 'titanium' thrown around often in marketing spam, but it's almost always just aluminum with a different tint in the anodize.

The Raptors are real titanium pegs made in a labor-intensive way.

Titanium, just like aluminum is very common on this planet. The pigment in white paint, for example, is titanium dioxide. Grinding wheels are aluminum oxide. But you really don't find metallic aluminum and titanium in nature because when hot they crave binding with gasses like oxygen and nitrogen. Like aluminum, it takes a lot of energy to separate metallic titanium. Welding them you have to make sure you don't expose the hot weld to atmospheric gases. Especially titanium. I made that mistake once when TIG welding a titanium part without putting it in a box of inert gas. It shattered like glass. Learning experience!

These were sold as straight Ti footpegs - not Al. They look to be cast though! The other peg had 7 cracks in it - even though it looks OK. I dont think they sell them anymore. S3 should hire me as a product tester. This was 1 seasons use.
FWIW - I liked the pegs until they broke. Metallurgy is really interesting, but I only know the basics, and dont easily retain the info unless I can relate it to a failure(s).

Interesting! Your pegs were made by the investment castings process from the and same wax molds S3 uses for the steel pegs. Here is a neat video that shows the investment cast titanium process used to make hammers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXFRRg8YMT0

Critical with titanium investment casting is control of the atmosphere during the pour and cooling, as the vid will show.

The grain structure visible in the rupture of your foot pegs is very coarse. That and your report of fatigue cracks tells me there was probably some nitrogen/oxygen contamination in the process. That's probably why the pegs are no longer available and S3 opted for the weldments from wrought and machined titanium.

You know - as I was hucking my bike off the steep ledge with reckless abandon, right before I stuffed my front wheel smack info a tree stump and came to an abrupt hault, The thought that flashed through my mind was in fact: " I only hope these pegs dont have any grain imperfections from N2/O2 contamination..." Unfortunately - I broke a few ribs in that crash and they still bother me from time to time.

Seriously though - Thanks for the explanation - I knew they looked cast - but didn't know what process was used. Pretty cool really.

Raptor are far better than S3, but I guess producing rests in the same way as Raptor do wasnt cost effective for S3? Only problem with Raptor is that the teeth do round off after a lot of use, but can be resharpened a couple of times.

An update on this project. The two sets of pegs I received from RYP have been designated for 4RT in silver and as Universal in red. I'm starting the Raga rebuild project reassembly today and noticed a difference in the frame clevis on the 2011 Raga. It uses clevises with 10mm, not 8mm holes. The 2008 GasGas eliptical-tube frame has 8mm clevises as is common or "universal" on most bikes, so I think this is a 2009/2010-plus change for GasGas. Not a bad idea at all to have drilled-out 10mm clevis pins.

A pic:



What is the same is the clevis width, the hole centerline to foot peg stop on the clevis, and the fact that the RQ pegs have 10mm through holes (the spacers step the holes down to 8mm). When I recommended the RQ (Sherco OEM) forged aluminum pegs, I had not yet fully mounted them. I will do so, and work out the required custom spacer design. You can mount these pegs right in without spacers, but it would be better to have a thin one on the downhill side so the peg doesn't run right on the clevis, and one on the uphill side for the return spring to wrap around.

With the MX type clevis pin mount, how do you take up any gaps between the sides of the rest and the mounting bracket? With bolts and spacers, it was very easy to tighten the bolts just enough so the mounting bracket clamped up against the spacer, which meant little or no play if you had just fitted new rests. I get the feeling the clevis idea has more to do with reducing costs, than improving function, which does seem pretty common nowadays.