WacoBill's Heel Rest Project

As a person of 6'2" height, and riding a 2003 Kawasaki 1600 Classic for hundreds of miles at a time (480 miles on 5/20/07), I experienced a new kind of leg cramp as I don't have a set of highway pegs.  The floorboards are positioned very well, but I have bad knees, so the limited movement the floorboards offer just is not suited to my longer rides.

My birthday is coming up and my lovely wife, LadyBosque, wanted to know if I wanted a crash guard and quick clamps for my kuryaken dually ISO pegs (with stirrups) or maybe a set of heel rests I have been considering for more than a year.

These heel rests were found online for as little as $124 + shipping.

Being the cheapskate I am, I was very reluctant to spend that much money on that little bit of metal of dubious strength.

I was considering the more costly option of the engine guard ($165) and the quick-clamps ($25 each), when I decided to see what I could do on my own.

Basically, all I need is a place to rest the top of my foot, and then also hook my heels over to get my knees completely straight for a few minutes at a time.  I thought about all sorts of fixes including the aluminum clamps that I have to temporarily mount radio antennas to pickup truck mirrors or bed rails. 

I removed the floorboards and discovered two unused threaded holes in the bottom!  On the bottom of the floorboard, towards the back is a soft aluminum sacrificial "slider" - basically it is meant to start grinding if you lean over too far before you actually start grinding the floorboard.  The slider is held on with two hex head bolts, which I removed along with the slider.

My instant thought was to get two 12" pieces of 1" diameter pipe and four pipe clamps, and I could clamp the pipes to the bottom of the floorboards and then use my existing 1" kuryaken quick clamps to mount the pegs.

This morning we went to the hardware store, and I decided that before I start buying pipe and clamps, I would look around.  What I figured out is worthy of passing along.

I purchased two gate locks for $3.89 each.  The only part I needed was the bar that slides into the lock mechanism.

Because the hex head bolt is thicker than the hole that is in the gate latch, I drilled it out to fit.

It was then a simple matter to use the hex head bolt to bolt my new heel rests to the bottom of the floorboard.

I only used one of the bolts as it mounted very securely with not a sign of wiggle.  I plan to put blue threadlocker on it in any case.

It looks pretty good on the floorboard.

And on the bike they just "work"

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The net result is I now have my heel rests for $10 instead of over $125.