Do you rotate your tires?

[AngryScientist]

Originally Posted by Gummee

Nope. Ole Sheldon was backasswards on this one. Front ANYthings are so rare as to be a non-issue.

Most of your weight is on the rear.
Most of your flats happen in the rear. Most = approaching 100% of your flats.
Y'all say you'll wear out 2-3 rears to a front...

So tell me again why having the new tire on the front it SO important if nothing ever happens to it?!

Think about the last time you had ANYthing happen to the front tire. I'll bet it's a hard bit of thinking. Even if you hit a pothole, it's almost always the rear tire/wheel that gets it.

...but since y'all are taking this on faith, I'm not going to be able to convince you. It's akin to a religious argument: no amount of proof will sway your thinking.

M

sorry gummy. i disagree, based on my experience. rear flats are more frequent yes, but i flat the front reasonably often also. it's just a matter of luck and what road debris you pick up.

as a matter of fact i had a front flat last week. it was in the rain, on my rain bike, which admittedly, as a pretty worn front tire...

it was a slow flat, and posed no danger, just wanted to refute your point that rear flats approach 100% frequency, when that is not the case in my personal [actual] experience.

and since you seem to like proof:

[wkeller79]

Rotate Front to Back.... 100%.

[martl]

A single-track vehicles stability depends on the front wheel (exactly the other way around as on a dual-track vehicle like a car). A sudden pucture on the front tire has a much bigger chance of sending you down than a puncture on the rear. That is why the old rule better (=newer) tire to the front.

Originally Posted by spinarelli

For most people the rear tire wears out faster. Do you rotate the tires to even out the wear? If so how often/miles?
Or, if you don't, do you only replace the rear tire with a new tire and keep the front as it is?
Or, are you as OCD as me, and when you have to replace one tire you replace both because you want the tan sidewall fading/yellowing to match?

If your tires aren't rotating, you're doing something fundamentally wrong.

SCNR

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by Gummee

Nope. Ole Sheldon was backasswards on this one. Front ANYthings are so rare as to be a non-issue.

Most of your weight is on the rear.
Most of your flats happen in the rear. Most = approaching 100% of your flats.

I agree that rear flats happen more often than front flats. But I don't agree that front flats are so infrequent that they are a non-issue. In the past 5 years I've had 3 flat tires - 2 rear, and 1 front. Front flats happen often enough that they matter.

Your insistence to put a new tire on the rear (instead of the front) appears to assume that tire wear dramatically increases the frequency of flatting. But I don't think that's necessarily true, as there are many variables involved in tire flatting. In my experience, the difference in dynamics between front and rear tires (such as weight on the wheel) are bigger factors than tire wear. In my last 3 flats, only one of the rear tires had any significant wear, the other rear flat and the front flat were on nearly new tires. In contrast, many times I've worn rear tires down to the cords with no flatting.

[Mzilliox]

I have only flatted my front tire in the last 3 years. 2 flats in 3 years, both fronts, both massive tubular rips from big things i did not see in time. i cannot tell you the last time i flatted a rear.
i ride wrong

[jamesdak]

Originally Posted by Gummee

Nope. Ole Sheldon was backasswards on this one. Front ANYthings are so rare as to be a non-issue.

Most of your weight is on the rear.
Most of your flats happen in the rear. Most = approaching 100% of your flats.
Y'all say you'll wear out 2-3 rears to a front...

So tell me again why having the new tire on the front it SO important if nothing ever happens to it?!

Think about the last time you had ANYthing happen to the front tire. I'll bet it's a hard bit of thinking. Even if you hit a pothole, it's almost always the rear tire/wheel that gets it.

...but since y'all are taking this on faith, I'm not going to be able to convince you. It's akin to a religious argument: no amount of proof will sway your thinking.

M

LOL, you've been told over and over yet you are accusing other of "taking this on faith" I suspect you are the one that "no amount of proof will sway your thinking".

[Gummee]

Originally Posted by benb

It's not about the frequency of something going wrong, it's about the consequences of it going wrong.

Rear tire going flat is no big deal, front tire going flat can be much harder to save, particularly if it happens fast.

Same thing with how rarely you see forks fail and how big of a deal it is. They get built with bigger safety margins than other parts of a bike for good reason. You hear about people cracking chainstays and such because their is little safety risk with a cracked chainstay so it's fine for the bike builder/designer to push the boundaries there. Pushing the boundaries on the weight of a fork is a different situation.

If nothing ever goes wrong, how is the situation dire?

M

[Blue Jays]

If I ever had to experience a high-speed tire flat...my hope is that it would be my REAR tire.

I opt not to rotate. I just purchase them in multiples of three.
Tires are cheap insurance and I change them with frequency.

[Marc40a]

Originally Posted by Blue Jays

If I ever had to experience a high-speed tire flat...my hope is that it would be my REAR tire.

I opt not to rotate. I just purchase them in multiples of three.
Tires are cheap insurance and I change them with frequency.

Me too.


Though, I will rotate a chunky 3" mtb tire, but never a road tire.

[benb]

Originally Posted by Gummee

If nothing ever goes wrong, how is the situation dire?

M

You didn't notice all the other people saying they've had flat front tires?

I have definitely had more rear flats but I've had a couple of front flats and they scared the sh*t out of me when I consider what would have happened if they happened at slightly different points in the ride.

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by Blue Jays

If I ever had to experience a high-speed tire flat...my hope is that it would be my REAR tire.

I opt not to rotate. I just purchase them in multiples of three.
Tires are cheap insurance and I change them with frequency.

Here's a different, but related case:

Here in New England, we experience a lot of freeze/thaw cycles in the winter, so off-road trails are often covered with sheets of ice. Many riders here use studded tires, which work remarkably well on ice. There are also a lot of rocks on our trails which can wear down studs so they don't grip ice as well. On slippery conditions (like ice), front wheel traction is far more important than rear wheel traction, so riders will use their newer studded tires on the front, and move their worn front studded tires to the rear.

[giordana93]

3 flats in the last 18 months. 2 in front, 1 in rear. based on that empirical evidence, I declare I flat twice as often on the front.

better, I switched to tubeless last year and the first flat I had (doh, let sealant get a little dry I guess) was on the front. at that moment, 100% of my flats on tubeless tires were on the front....

anyway, I'm in the "buy 3 tires" camp and don't usually bother rotating, unless I'm fixing a flat at the house and circumstances push me move an older front to the rear

[tony_mm]

Road: I usually don’t rotate but change the tires quite frequently.

MTB: I usually rotate the tires in order to always have the best tire in front.

[dgauthier]

The reason one puts the best tire on the front *is to reduce the number of flats on the front tire*. If a small majority of riders are rotating front to back(*), if front tires seem to get less flats it would seem to indicate the practice works.

(*) Of the 30 responses in this thread so far that indicate a preference, 17 rotate front to back only. Your count may differ because some responses are open to interpretation.

[dem]

My flats are 3:1 ratio rear:front.

I also rotate the front to the rear, mostly because I am cheap. After 5000 miles, the front barely looks used - might as well square it off on the rear and put a fresh one on the front.

My most terrifying flat: High speed descent >40 mph, front puncture dead in the center of the tire, spewing tubeless sealant which then oiled down my rear tire too(!) - thankfully it was a straight descent, so I somehow slithered to a halt without crashing.