Ness/Battistini Speed-Hole Grips And Pegs – Holey Moley
A few issues back we installed a set of Knuckle Bars from Todd’s Cycles on our ’96 Softail Springer project bike. And while we weren’t going for a specific theme or style for the bike, when we were looking over our current cover bike we quickly picked up on the speed-hole theme and especially noticed the grips and pegs from Battistini available through Arlen Ness, and thought they would look good with the drilled gussets on the bars.
Many years ago, the drilled or speed-hole design came about more out of necessity rather than style. In the never-ending quest for speed, once every unnecessary part was stripped off the bike, racers looked to lighten the load by removing as much metal material as mechanically possible and still make a safe pass down the strip. This could be done in a number of ways, one of which was to just drill holes wherever you could. From that point, like many themes, it became more of a style or look and less of an actual performance enhancement. Even though we don’t plan on running this Springer down the drag strip, we do like the look of the speed-hole theme.