So today I was spinning out in a 15 MPH zone when I needed to take a 90 degree right turn. I turned the handlebars pretty hard and leaned into the turn quite a bit to avoid the car at the stop light. Weird thing happened, I turned so hard my pedal scraped the ground, not all that unusual, I've scraped a peg a few times on my motorcycle. What was weird is that it scraped so hard it actually lifted up the back tire and slid me over a few feet. Does this ever happen to anyone else, or did I just lean too much with a low bottom bracket? Its scary fun, like the kind that nearly makes you mess yourself and laugh at the same time.

how long are your cranks? you shouldn't run longer than 170mm on a fixie conversion. i've only really scraped my 170's in the velodrome on my iro, which doesn't have a track height bb.

unnerving isn't it?

I'm running 170mm cranks right now, I've scraped gently once before with them

And its incredibly unnerving, in a crap yourself sort of way. Definitley made everything that happened at work today seem minor

like was said earlier if your bike isnt a true track bike, the bottom bracket height will be lower and thus you run a greater risk of scraping your crank arm while cornering. 165mm is the recommended length for a conversion. my friend seriously injured himself while scraping on a corner with his converted road bike. a lot of bmx cranksets are smaller and make good conversion cranks. if i were you id switch cranks or just be really careful.

It happened to me once, when I first got my bike, I slowed to about 5 mph to take the turn and bam! It was really freaky, thought I hit a rock or something.

That happens to me on a regular basis. I just take it as a limitation of that particular bike. I can only lean so far unless I time the turn -very- carefully. The nice thing is that unless you're really pushing the limit of traction, your rear wheel usuall sticks again and you can just keep riding, (although a bit shaken). The trick is as soon as it happens to put some weight on the front wheel and make sure it stays on your turn line, otherwise you can go way off track.

If it does kick your rear wheel all the way out, it's not even that bad of a crash, 'cause your foot's in the pedal, so it's likely just road rash, and probably nothing bashed or twisted.

The reason it actually lifts the wheel is that the crank is still spinning and you hit it while it was going down and it lifted the rear end.

We have these lovely curbs in suburbia that go from street down to driveway. (Serve as rain-flow channels) Well, first time out on the fixie, I head over the curb, not realizing that the front wheel is below the rear for a second and the low pedal catches the driveway. The bike starts getting all wobbly on me and down I go. I wasn't hurt, although I was pretty glad I was wearing gloves (another hole).

My road conversion suffers pedal strike all the time with 170mm cranks. Never been a problem, always managed to ride it out. Then last week on my street track which has a much higher BB, I'm taking a hard left (like greater than 90 deg), seeing how hard I can push it. Fash, low, and struck the pedal. Went down, skidded across two lanes (luckily I shot an all-red so no traffic). F'd up my clothes, keys, got a booboo on my elbow (through two shirts), and bruised the hell out of my left thigh. Only scraped part of the bottom of the pedal body away though!

Anyhow, watch yerself and think about some shorter cranks.

Did it once... scary as hell. Turned right too hard and BAMMMMM. My right foot got out of the clip and I was freaked. Messed up my right pedal but still ridable.

Nice adredeline rush, but a little too close to call.

did you guys see the prologue of the tour this year? there was a guy who crashed becuase he hit a pedal. I forget rider and team, but he was blond and had a blue suit, like rabobank or something. ****, why am I bothering. you crazy punk-rockers here dont watch cycling.

I do.

I lament the lack of OLN in my current abode.

i live for pedal strike

Bit of advice that randomly occurs to me: many people swear by off-camber cornering. Rather than lean down in line with the bike, put your body off-center to the inside of the corner but leave the bike in a more upright position. Of course this really messes with how those forces are translated to the contact patch, but YMMV.

Me, it seems like too much trouble.

if a pedal strike freaks you (which it shouldn't,) wait till you catch a pedal when riding too close to a curb! yowza!

Did it once on the way to work. Made my heart skip a beat!

I've heard that specific track frames have a higher BB than a normal road frame to avoid this problem. Obviously track frames have fairly upright geometry, and are not everybody's cup of tea. Do cyclocross frames have a higher BB height too to take into acount rough terrain? I was looking at various frame specs a while ago, and couln;t seem to ever find info on BB heights. Is there a good source of this info anywhere?

Coat your rear tire with sterno before your next pedal strike. It makes it extra fun (both for you, and for traffic).

cyclocross bikes used to have higher BB heights, however, most manufacturers are starting to lower the BB again for better handling. the lower the BB, the more stable the handling. with a track bike, it doesn't matter too much, becuase the track bike is already twitchy.

Inever had problems with 171mm cranks on my Bianchi, but now that I'm running 175s on a Falcon road conversion for winter, I've had a couple of scrapes so far. It's going to be worse when I put those huge Primo BMX Platforms on when the snow starts flying.

Sometimes the bike bites back.

I have that atleast once a week when I squeeze by cars. thats why I got some cheaper shimano
pedals instead of eggbeaters.

Since I have got my x-2s haven’t scraped … it can be damn unnerving when you don’t expect the ground to move!