[flafonta]

My Racing Ralph 2.25 29er have arrows indicating the mounting direction.

And it shows a different direction if the tire is mounted in the front or rear.

Do you all follow these?

Some of the local folks (including racers) seem to prefer to mount them both the same direction to minimize rolling resistance, and therefore, maybe losing some traction in the rear while climbing. We do not have a lot of though climbing around here.

Thanks!

 

[Squash]

I usually follow manufacturers...

recommendations as far as mounting direction for a given tire. There are several out there that I have tried. Of those I still use that recommend different mounting directions for front and rear use, Panaracer Fire XC Pro, Continental Vertical Pro, and Continental Mountain King, I've found the following. With the Fires you don't loose much climbing traction but you do loose braking traction when mounted the same in the rear as on the front. With the MK's and Verticals you loose a bit of both climbing and braking traction, climbing traction being the most noticeable. In all three cases the difference in rolling resistance has been negligable. IMHO I think that any percieved reduction in rolling resistance is more of a "it's mostly in their heads" type thing. However not having used the New RR's I can't comment on them specifically.

All you can do is give it a try. Run the rear in the recommended direction for a while and the switch it around and see if it makes a difference paying particular attention to rolling resistance and avialable climbing and braking traction. If they feel better running them the "wrong way", then leave it like that. It all depends on what works for your trails and the way you ride. In my experience with this type of tire is you gain little or nothing as far as rolling resistance running it "backwards" and loose a little (at least) in other areas of performance. But then you never know, the Ralph may be the horse of a different color everyone talks about. :thumbsup: So try it and let us know.

Good Dirt

 

[AzSpeedfreek]

I run a RR on the rear in the reccomended direction, I did try it in the opposite direction and the only difference I noticed was in cornering, it wasn't quite as good. Rolling resistance was the same however as far as I could tell.

 

[LyNx]

With a tyre design like the RR I don't think that running it the recomended way will matter much as far as rolling resistance is concerned. Now take a tyre like the Panaracer Rampage which has ramped knobs and YES, running it in the forward direction on the rear will improve Rolling Resistance in a big way AND increase braking traction, BUT will decrease climbing/forward traction quite a bit.