Touring - Tire directionality

Does it matter?
I noticed that the front tire on my new Sherpa is mounted with the arrow facing the wrong way. The back one is right but the front tire is backwards.
The tires are Kenda Kompact.

I wouldn't sweat it on a fairly smooth road tire, OTOH if you have rim brakes just flip the whole wheel around and swap the QR so the lever is back on the left. The front hub doesn't care which way it rotates.

I wouldn't sweat it on a fairly smooth road tire, OTOH if you have rim brakes just flip the whole wheel around and swap the QR so the lever is back on the left. The front hub doesn't care which way it rotates.

+1

I think I will pull it off the rim and swap it.
I am traditional in the fact that the labels should be read from the right hand side..........
Oh well.

Seems to makes little to no difference.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/tires.html#direction

why then are the arrow's on the tyre in the first place,i would take it off have the arrows faceing the same waythat make's sense to me .

Unless you're doing 70 mph + in hard rain it shouldn't be an issue.

I normally disable the rocket motors on my ride when I screw up the arrows and pedal in the rain. :D

...but seriously... Flip it next time you get a flat, not a big deal.

Flipping is not that simple... if you run a computer magnet and sensor.

I have noticed with unidirectional treaded tyres that I mount on the rear with the incorrect rotation that the wear is accelerated. I would also suggest that in wet weather, tyre performance might be compromised because the siping grooves would not work as efficiently.

And I suspect that the undirectionality might have something to do with the lay of the threads in the tyre casing and how they behave in terms of "suspension".

Remember that directional tires mean you can't cross-rotate. Yeah... it's Friday in Polakland.


On a more serious note, directional tires usually have some sort of V-shape sipes, such as Conti Top Touring 2000, which are meant to pump water away from the center of the tire. The pointy tip of the V contacts the road first and as the tire rotates the sipes push the water out. This configuration might also give a smoother ride. The rear tire is reversed because the spread part of the V contacts the riding surface first and is supposed to give you more bite enhancing propulsive traction. This also means the front tire might have more bite when braking. How much this means in the real world I've yet to discern after years of riding, but it sure looks good on a parked bike.

Flipping is not that simple... if you run a computer magnet and sensor.

Why not? It takes all of 2 seconds to unmount a computer magnet and remount on the other side once you've flipped the front wheel around. I've shared computer magnets between bikes for a while - swapping them on/off is trivial.

2 seconds? You must be a magician. I couldn't do it in that time with a screw-on magnet, nor the one with the little metal sleeve that slips over the plastic housing, nor the one encased in a plastic fitting that goes across two spokes and also has a screw to clamp it together.

What brand of magnet are you talking about?

Mounting the tyre so you don't have to swap QRs and magnets also is pretty trivial. And permanent.