[bEn]

I recently bought a Panaracer Fire XC Pro and got my LBS to put it on for me. The thing that is worrying me is how they put it on. On the tire it tells you which way the tread should run on the front and which way the tread should run on the rear.
eg. Front- Anticlockwise. <--
Rear - Clockwise. -->

I wanted them to put it on the rear the right way (clockwise) but they put it on the wrong way which would be anticlockwise.

My question is, will this affect the tread on my tire? Should it be put on the right way?

Thanks.

Raiyn

It will be fine. You can switch it if you want, but it's not going to hurt things as is. The other way is marginally better but not worth ****zing over

[bEn]

Ok thanks for that.

PWRDbyTRD

I made the same mistake and was just too unmotivated to fix it.

jeff williams

Since the tire is unidirectional, it wouldn't matter. A tire tread designed to go only one direction front\rear I'd keep to the directions.

anthonaut

Don't worry about it until next time you have to pull it off for some other reason. Unless you're picky like me

CranxOC

I made the same mistake the first time I mounted a pair of Panaracers. I'm a bit anal about everything fitting the way it should on my bike so I took the stupid thing off -which is completely unadvisable when you're dealing with new UST tires...ouch! - and put them back on the right way.

One thing to note about the Fire XC Pros: they are semi directional. Look at the outter tread and notice that there is a small ramp up to the main knob which is put there to help reduce roll resistance. If you're a hardcore XC guy, you may want to re-mount the tires because, having them reversed, will slow you down just a teensy, tiny bit. On the other hand, mounting them backwards will likely help increase your traction to some extent so you may like that better.

Killer B

I sometimes run my tires "backwards" just for better traction.... Amazing

alcahueteria

you get better traction from a backwards tire? That doesn't make sense. I would think that those arrows would indicate the direction for the best traction.

Raiyn

Actually the tires I run on my trail bike have a "Mud" direction and a "hard" direction so no your generalization is incorrect.

Often the tread will be reversed on the rear allowing the straighter block edges to add driving traction while the front has the straighter edges orientated to assist in braking traction

[bEn]

If i have some spare time, i might change it.

CranxOC

No, the arrows are in place to provide you with the proper direction for the least amount of roll resistence but that has little or nothing to do with traction. The greater the knob and the least amount of directionality will lend itself to the most traction but this also slows the rolling ability of the tire down exponentially (generally speaking at least)so, if speed is your goal, you absolutely want to run the tire in its proper direction.

If you don't believe me, go check out MTB Action's massive tire test from last year; there were several models that they recommended people run backwards (the Specialized Roll X was one of them...their #2 rated tire) because they worked so much better that way.