AC Racing grab bar & pro pegs

Posted March 10th, 2007 by sza

TRX250R

There were a couple things I really didn't like about my quad when I bought it. It had a cheesy cooler rack and an even cheesier set of nerf bars. I don't really have any use for a cooler rack (I have one of those water backpacks), and it was long enough that it hung over the tailgate of my pickup truck when the quad was in the bed. As for the nerf bars, well, I've never particularly liked the look of nerfs in the first place, and the ones that came on my quad were held on by u-straps and a single bolt on each peg. Yes, they wobbled. Not particularly great for something that you're expecting to catch you if you come off the pegs. They also made it very difficult to shift in boots.

The six pack rack was fairly easy to get rid of. I replaced it with an AC Racing aluminum grab bar, which is much, much shorter, and even came with a number plate (which I'll never use). Of course, being an AC Racing product, it required some bending and fighting to install. I'm not really sure where I stand on AC Racing's products. They almost never fit perfectly, and the welds are of questionable quality. Sometimes the fitup of the joints isn't that great, you occasionally see carbon streaking in the welds (and other signs that the metal wasn't perfectly clean), and there's usually some undercutting at the edges of the joints. Now, as someone who's made plenty of lousy welds on aluminum, I probably shouldn't complain--their parts are usually about the quality of stuff I could make myself in my garage (and fit about as well), but they're cheap and buying is a heluva lot easier than making.

When it came to the nerf bars, my initial desire was to drop them completely. I've seen enough ankle/leg injuries from falling off stock pegs that I wanted some sort of protection though. What I really wanted was a set of IMS/Roll Design heel guards. Unfortunately, they require IMS pegs, which cost over $200. Oh, and they're discontinued. I even called Roll Design to see if they had a set of the pegs on a shelf somewhere--no luck. Darn.

Oh well, back to our friends AC Racing for a set of their "Blackline Pro Pegs." They're still nerf bars, but they attach more securely, have absolutely gigantic pegs (see the photos), and relocate the pegs down and back, which, for my size 13 feet, makes it a lot easier to reach the rear brake and shifter. As usual, installation required a prybar and a hammer, but it wasn't all that bad overall. The pegs came unpainted, however, so I shot them with some leftover flat black BBQ paint before bolting them down.

Oh yeah, I also installed a new set of grips, as my old ones were starting to wear out. So exciting. I even moved the controls inward enough that there's not 1/2" of grip sticking out past the end of the bars. They "Pro Grips" with "firm" gel inserts and a waffle pattern for your fingers. The old grips were the same Tag's that Dorothy has on her Banshee, and were pretty soft. I've found that soft grips don't really work for me as I tend to just compress them all the way and end up hitting the bar, which isn't soft at all.