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Tire rotation direction
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I was riding with a friend yesterday, and as we were walking
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Cant answer your Q Steve, hadn't stayed at the HI lately, but its good to
hear from you, unless I missed something you haven't posted much for a
while
Still riding the RG ?
Hope all is well
Kickstart
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back to the bikes after a lunch stop, I noticed that his bike,
like mine, had Metzler tires. I thought something looked
strange, and after looking again, I noticed that his tread
was going the opposite direction from mine, so I commented
that one of our bikes had the tire on backwards. Turned out
his was mounted wrong.
Anyway, this got me to wondering, is the tread pattern the
reason for the direction the tire is supposed to rotate, or
is there something in the internal construction of the tire
as well? He said he had about 700 miles on it. Will he
have any problems with remounting it the correct way?
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As I understand it the way the tire's carcass is constructed in terms of
ply overlaps and stuff is planned to handle the stresses that are
expected in the direction they're expected. Running a modern tire with
the directional arrow going in the wrong direction could possibly do
internal damage to the tire. Theoretically.
Do I know anybody who's gone down because the had a tire on backwards?
Nope. Do I know anybody who's flipped one back around and then gone
down because of it? Nope.
Do I know that one of the hot tips on mid-sixties Dunlop tires was to
run a back tire on the front with it facing in the wrong direction?
Yep. Did I do that? Yep. Did I crash because of it? Nope.
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Well, you are indeed supposed to turn it around if you run a
rear tire in the front. The reason is simple: The rear tire is
constructed to receive most of its impact from the propulsion, whereas
the front tire is constructed to receive most of its impact from
braking.
Therefore, the arrows of rotation are stamped in opposite
directions for the front and rears (relative to their construction).
So if, for some reason, you put a rear tire in the front (i.e. you're
building something with a large size in the front that you can only
find a rear tire for), mount it with the arrow going the "wrong" way.
Phil...the "not a Physics major, but that should make sense..." Asshole(tm)...
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No, I haven't. In the middle of switching from dial-up to cable
internet, switching email addys, etc., my computer went belly-up
around the first of April. It's been sent in twice for a new
motherboard, and still waiting for it to come back (fortunately
I bought the MA, so I'm out nothing but time). I'm working on
a friend's computer that is available to me but doesn't have
everything I'm used to installed. So I haven't spent too much
time on the NGs lately.
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Yep. Thinking about a new one, but I've been doing that for
a few years now. Just passed 97K, so it will be time before
too long -- still running great though. Thought I was doing
good on miles until the local HD service manager told me about
an RG from Iowa that stopped in for a minor repair -- it was
an '07 with 44K miles. Almost makes RE look like a piker.
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Yep (except for da 'puter, anyhow), thanks. Hope things are
well with you as well. I see you're on the list for Roger's --
I haven't signed up yet but hope to make it, so maybe see
you there!
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Bias ply tires are built to run in one direction
only. Radial tire carcasses can be run either way.
The tread pattern is unidirectional. On dry
pavement it won't matter. In the tire, the reversed
tread will try to push water foreward, instead of
rearward. More likely to hydroplane.
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