I would appreciate some advice.  I rode a Kawasaki KZ1000 for about 8 years.  My favorite things with the bike was accelerating and cornering.  I lost some confidence on the bike about 7 years ago when I had a slow speed accident on a corner.  It totally surprised me when I hit some gravel turning into a parking lot.  
I stopped riding until I recently got back into it again.  This time I went with a cruiser instead of the sportier KZ style bike.  I got a Honda VTX 1300.  I am in my forties now and need to slow down a little (I was telling myself).  I am the kind of person that always pushes up to the limits.  I want to be safe, but I want to find out where the edge of safe is so I know how to respond in crisis.
One thing I read about the VTX is they are bad at cornering and they likely drag the footpeg.  I read in an article that it is best to practice dragging so you don't react negatively and have an accident.  I was practicing and dragged a couple times on an Interstate ramp and felt I handled it really well.  I was riding a couple months ago and wasn't necessarily "trying" to drag, but I wanted to feel the corner on a country drive.  I don't remember losing control, but I felt a slight drag and the bike was out from under me and I slid for 65 feet and tore the bike and myself up fairly good.
The bike is all fixed and I'm healed up, but I have lost confidence on the corners now.  I have some rides coming up in a couple of weeks and it is not as much fun for me as it was because I don't know how sharp I can corner and how to find out because I won't get away with another wreck in the near future and ride any more.
Many of my "cruiser" friends just tell me "slow down, stupid.  It's not a sport bike."  But then I read the article on this website that talks about practicing the drag for safety on a cruiser and I get confused again.  What do you think?  Do you think the VTX is not made to go that low?

I appreciate any opinions you might want to offer.

Thanks,
Paul  

All bikes corner essentially the same. Whether I'm riding a cruiser with little cornering clearance or a dual-sport with nearly limitless clearance, I go SLOW around corners, because an extremely high percentage of motorcycle accidents involving corners and curves.  Oil spots, gravel, chuckholes, sealing compounds, man-hole covers - they're all waiting to get you. You just gotta slow down, dude!  

Most cruiser style bikes will drag in corners. My V-Star 1100 was really bad for this and it did put me off the bike. As Vmaxer says, you just have to go slower. Some bikes are worse than others. My V-Star 11 was really bad. My current rides, Triumph Speedmaster and Honda VT 600 are not so bad.  

I understand where you are!  I'm parked until my cracked rib heals.  Don't ask.   Let's just say that I did a stupid thing and I won't be doing it again.  I learned that everywhere I had protective gear, I didn't get a scratch or a bruise.  Everywhere that I did NOT have good gear...  Be sure you have the best protective gear you can afford and wear it.  It may not look cool to have a chest protector or knee protectors, but if I'd have had them, I'd still be riding...and the couch isn't cool.

Getting back on the bike after a crash is as much a mental-head thing as a physical one.  It will make you more cautious, sure.  But, you also have to be ready.

As for leaning and curves.  The rule is that if you can NOT see at least 4 seconds in front of you, you are going too fast.  In curves, I always slow down a LOT, and I don't start rolling the throttle until I can see open road ahead of me...I just use enough throttle during the front of the curve to keep the suspension good...and I always have my 4 seconds of time to react and stop.  Dragging the foot pedals means you're just going too fast.  Slow it down.  The curves are awesome!  But do those high speed fun things on a closed course.  Street riding requires a greater safety margin.  Heal up soon, then get back on.  

PS:  If you haven't taken the Motorcycle Safety Foundation's Basic or Advanced Rider course, do it soon.  (you can google their website).  Whatever it costs you, it is cheaper than a crash.  If you've had that "M" for a long time on your license, the MSF can save you from a lot of road rash.    

What do you mean by dragging? = DO you mean scraping? I just purchased an 1100 vstar 2005 with 230 miles on it  

Here's a thought. I've seen a number of riders with little bells hanging from the footpegs/boards. The idea is that it tells you that you are almost in trouble... but not quite. Sounds like a way to do what you want, which is 9/10ths riding. Ok, they are generally sold as gremlin bells, but, you know.. sometimes you ARE the gremlin.

A lot of footpegs just lift the bike off the ground when they hit(especially on cruisers).  

Youdah gave good advice, do a saftey course you will be amazed at the things you learn. You need to learn how to counter steer; that is if you are turning left push on the left bar and when you turn right push on the right bar. Pick your speed before the bend go in wide and drop in narrow. Keep the power on all the way through the bend but ease down a little going in and then increase the power as you are comming out. It's a bit like patting your head whist rubbing your tummy at first but you soon et used to it with practice. But do the course.  

I'm in the same boat.  Road dirt bikes most of my life.  Just bought a VTX-1300 and I'm scrapping the pegs all the time, even going slow.  I've always just leaned the bike to turn, now I need to learn to turn the handlebars hard.  I've only had the bike for a week and a half and love it except for cornering.  I love the thrill of going fairly fast around a turn just need to learn another way to do it...  

I ride a V-Star 1300 Tourer.  It drags way too soon, so I go slower than I'd like sometimes.  There are short "warning" pins on the bottom of the foot boards that warn you the edge in near.  They push the footboard upwards, but I'm not going to try and see how far I can push it.

It's probably for the best, because as you mentioned, a little gravel can dump you when you aren't prepared. I hadd some major road rashes 30 years ago, and don't ever want another one.  

One thing I didn't see mentioned specifically is looking through the turn.  Youdah mentioned the 4 second rule, and that is the place to start.  If you are looking four seconds ahead, you will steer/lean more accurately and be less likely to go off the "high" side.  When you see a danger patch 4 seconds ahead, you have time to react before it hurts you.

I was torn between the Honda and Yamaha.  My decision was made because the Yamaha salesman called me back with a good price two days before the Honda guy did.

One the advantages of being an old fart is no one is surprised if you don't ride like you did in your twenties.  

A cruiser and a sport bike will never corner the same because of design of the lower body.  It also has to do with the angle of the front forks on different models, like a chopper doesn't turn as well.  If your looking for excitement I think you found it, you might want to go back to a sport bike design that is laid back.  

Leaning the bike is only part of the turning process. Taking a corner requires three seperate steering inputs. You contersteer to put the bike into a lean, then you steer into the turn to reduce the turn radius and finally you countersteer to bring the bike back out of the lean.

Cruisers don't have near the cornering clearance that sportbikes or even standard bikes do. Leaning hard in the turns will not use up the tires available traction. Consequently, you can brake pretty strongly even when leaned over to the limit. Additionally, you can steer farther into the turn, forcing the bike to turn sharper than the lean alone will allow.

As you steer into the turn, the bike wants to stand back up, just like when you countersteer to bring it out of the lean. The faster you are going, the harder it is to prevent the bike from standing back up while steering into the turn. When maneuvering in a parking lot, at a walking pace, it's easy to crank the steering all the way over against the stops even when leaned over enough to drag bike parts on the pavement.

When starting a hard turn, accelerating from a standing start, you begin with the bike leaned over and the steering hard against the stop. Then as the bike speeds up, the effort to hold the steering hard against the stop increases rapidly and the handlebars naturally move back towards center, letting the lean do most of the turning as the bike approaches 10 or 15 mph. Most people don't even bother to try steering into the corner any more, if the bike is moving faster than about 15 mph, but the technique still works. As the speed increases, this technique depends on your ability to use your body weight and muscle to prevent the bike from standing up.

While the OP apparently never came back to read any replies, since posing his question nearly a year ago, most of the replies didn't address his problem, which was apparently a catastrophic loss of traction. If you're going hard into the corner and you hit gravel, sand or a patch of oil on the pavement, you're going down, no matter how much cornering clearance your bike has. No matter what kind of bike you're riding, you have to pay attention to the road surface in the corners.

Cruisers have one only one more problem than other bikes in the corners, road crown.

If you have to ride across the crown while leaned over, then your ground clearance can suddenly be reduced by several inches. If that happens when you're already dragging bike parts on the pavement, theres a good chance that you might lose that extra margin of traction, when some of the bike's weight is shifted from the tires to the part of the bike jammed against the pavement. This can also be a problem in a curve, with tire ruts compressed into the asphalt. You have to pay attention to the road surface in the corners.

regards,
Joe