Originally Posted by
jimmuller
My original post was asking "When did it become traditional?" Maybe it was traditional back in 1972 when I started riding but I sure didn't notice, and wouldn't have noticed one way or the other anyway. But, umm, isn't "tradition" a form of conformism?
Tradition includes steel frames with horizontal top tubes, does'n'it?
[I'm just pulling a few chains here.]
I think it probably started, out of someone getting tired of hunting for flat causing objects looking at the whole tire, then they noticed that the label was a point of reference, which made it easier, and they told others, who started doing it, until pretty much everyone was doing it. That is when it became tradition, not following the tradition makes people think some clueless idiot installed the tires.
As for directional tires, road tires, it doesn't matter much, although, if the tire maker puts a direction arrow on the side of the tire, and you ignore it, then when people notice it, they will think some clueless idiot installed the tires. It's common to have a direction of travel on off-road tires, sometimes it's same front and rear, sometimes they go one way on the front and the other on the rear, sometimes the front and rear tire are different, but don't have a direction of travel, sometimes they are different front and rear and do have a direction of travel. In the case of off-road, putting the proper tire on front and rear in the stated direction, can make the ride, much more enjoyable.