Last spring at the Long Beach Motorcycle Swap Meet we saw a set of forward controls with chicken talons for toe pegs. Another set featured water-cut shifter and brake arms that looked like barbed wire. A third set had glowing skulls on the ends of the foot pegs like the running boards on satan’s ice cream truck.
Nobody needs this kind of bullshit on their motorcycle. The old saying, “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should” holds true in the custom motorcycle industry, but builders and manufacturers that follow this wisdom are few and far between.
There is a simplicity and elegance to riding a motorcycle that becomes tarnished when people decorate their controls with fringe, flames and other nonsense.
Biltwell forward controls are designed—not decorated—to do their job with maximum reliability and very little fanfare.
MATERIALS: Our design process begins with selecting appropriate materials. Our foot pegs, toe pegs, shifter arms and mounting plates are CNC machined from billet 6061 aluminum. After machining, drilling and threading, every piece is heat treated to T-6 hardness for additional strength. All pivot bushings are solid brass. the pivot spindles are hardened 4130 chromoly. Of course, all hardware is grade-eight in standard SAE thread sizes.
FOOT PEGS: A good set of forward controls should be rigid. To that end, our foot peg assemblies comprise three parts: an aluminum core foot rest, a cylindrical mounting tube and a hardened grade-8 mounting bolt. The hardened bolt functions like a steel spine inside the lightweight aluminum mounting tube and threads deep into the knurled foot peg to minimize flex.
ADJUSTABLE: An added benefit of our clever peg design is adjustability. By simply removing the mounting bolt and cutting it and the mounting tube to your desired length, our forward controls can be narrowed to fit a broader range of custom applications. If you aren’t running a 3-inch-wide external belt drive, for instance, there’s no reason for your forward controls to be wide enough to accommodate this setup. This feature makes Biltwell forward controls a great choice for custom Japanese and British twin-cylinder bikes, all of which are much narrower than American and Metric big twins.
RUBBER FOOT PEGS: The rubber sleeves on the toe pegs and foot pegs of Biltwell forward controls are injection molded with a knurled surface pattern for extra traction. Because our rubber-covered pegs are soft and nonabrasive, they won’t wear through shoe laces on sneakers or scuff the toes on expensive boots. When these rubber sleeves wear out, simply disassemble the peg, remove the old rubber and replace it with a section of any BMX or motocross handgrip. If you loved the red ODI mushroom grips on your old BMX bike, now you can replicate that style on your motorcycle.
DURABLE: The internal spindles upon which our shifter and brake levers pivot are made of heat treated 4130 chromoly. Their construction is identical to the splined spindles on classic Redline and Profile three-piece cranks for BMX. Bronze bushings and a series of Delrin spacers keep the shifter and brake arms moving freely, and can be disassembled easily for lubrication and maintenance.
SURFACE FINISHES: Two surface finishes are available: mirror polished or black anodized. There are dozens of companies that offer chrome-plated forward controls. If this is the finish you prefer, please contact another manufacturer.
FITMENT: Biltwell forward controls fit Evolution era stock H-D frames and most custom aftermarket frames. As with any aftermarket component, clearance and tolerances are an issue, and care should be taken to ensure a proper fit. Some stock and aftermarket shifter linkages and/or master cylinder actuators may require modification during assembly. If you have any doubts, please call us or consult a professional mechanic or a local builder.
Biltwell forward controls in both Black ano and Polished are in stock now—click Where to Buy at top of page for purchasing information
MSRP: (Black anodized or polished aluminum) $462
