ATV & UTV Tire Basic Facts You Must Know

All Terrain - The Jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none tire of the ATV & Side By Side world. But for general trail riding in most of the country, this will be your weapon of choice. Designed to have decent ride and handling on most types of terrain. You can find tires within this category that are designed to favor one kind of terrain more than another. This usually mean mud. Look for a little more tread depth with a bit more space between lugs for better self-cleaning. These will give you better traction in the goo without wearing as fast as real mud tires.

Mud - If you ride in mud most of the time, there is no substitute for the real thing. ATV mud tires are all about going forward in sloppy surfaces. Unfortunately, that means they're not that great at doing anything else. Not too bad on other soft surfaces, you'll pay the price if you ride them in rocks or on hard pack terrain.

Sand - Also called paddle tires because that's pretty much what they look like. Except the fronts which are normally smooth or have a couple of simple ribs around them. Sand tires are an either or proposition - if you ride the dunes you must have them - but they're no good for anything but sand. In fact, they are so specialized, most folks just keep at least a pair of rear paddles mounted for when they get the urge to get sand in their shorts.

Racing - Racing tires are a whole specialty by themselves. Special tread designs and compounds are engineered for specific track conditions. If you're a racer, you are already well aware of those differences. If not - well it doesn't really matter. Most racing tires have a flat profile and are intended to run on medium to hard packed terrain (think motocross). If that's the kind of trails you ride, they could work on a sport ATV, but there are probably better choices in an all terrain type tire.