Has anyone ever changed their tires to rotate the opposite of how they were originally put on the bike? I was looking at my tires and noticed that if I swapped my rear tires the tread would then be more like scoops. I was looking at the tire though and it had a rotation direction so I wasnt sure if I would be doing damage by going against it?

 

I don't think that would be wise. These tire manufactures spend a lot to time an R&D. Think about how good your traction is in REVERSE...Arlan

 

Juice, I just did that about a month ago. I noticed my xct's edges were rounding over a bit, so I figured what the heck, I'll try swapping tires... put the right one on the left side and the L on the R side. They hooked up like they did when they were new. I got at least 4 long rides on them so far with no apparent Ill effects. So for me it works. Give it a shot and good luck to you. Bob

 

Directional tread is designed to give you the most "pull" in one direction-forward. It is perfectly fine to swap your tires, making them run opposite of what direction they were intended. What happens though is instead of "digging in" to get traction, you'll tend to "float" up on top better. This method is recommended in sand or snow to keep you up on top, rather than cutting down in, and burying yourself. The farmers have been doing this for ages-flipping the front tires, or even both front and back, in sandy or loose soils to keep the huge 8 and 12 wheel tractors up on top of the ground, rather than biting down in, getting stuck.

Best of Luck,

Mike

 

Well, you learn something every day...Arlan

 

Arlan-
Oops, sorry, hope I didn't sound rude there, I sure didn't mean to! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-blush.gif[/img]
You're right though, they do put a lot of time into R&D for tires these days-hell, look at Firestone now, I'm sure they'll be about the most safe tire on the road you can get-kind of like Jack-in-the-Box after that big e-coli scare a few years back. Sometimes this "bad publicity" does great things to a company to re-engineer a better, safer, healthier product. As for tires, yeah, that's a little old trick I learned a few years back from an old timer farmer-pretty cool, and really works great! I don't know if I'd try it on radial automobile tires though, that might be a different story all together. Off-road, bias ply and tractor tires, it works great though for keeping you above ground, rather than digging in deep!

Anyway, Best of Luck, and great pictures of your quads there, that Grizz looks pretty bad _ss! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

Mike

 

Thanks for the informative responses guys, just what I needed to know.

Juice