how do I know which way the tire treads face on my ATV?

 

Mine have a bit of an arrow shape to the tread and the tire tracks always point back to where I came from. The tread on top of the tire faces forward and there's an arrow that says rotation so you know which way they turn in a forward gear. If your tires don't have any of those things they must be non-directional and you can put them on either way.

 

The dunlops on my older Praire had a direction arrow but they wore down from riding on the street so I turned them backwards to get better traction in snow. I ran them against the arrows for years without a problem but I didn't run at high speed !!!

 

A lot of ATV tires are based off tractor tires that were designed for mud. They more or less have a Y look about the tread. When the tire is making contact with the ground that Y should point backwards. The tread is designed to push mud out of the way, to the sides, so you can get through. Some of the higher power machined can make these tread bars act like a paddle at high speeds.