Help me with tire terminology!!

[Trikotic]

alright, runnin through a catalog i see a whole host of different tires which all have different constructions and i have no idea what the differences are :cry: . Lets see, help me out here:
Ply - how thick the tire is or something?
Radial - is that with steel belts??
Ply-bias- what is a bias ply?
i think those are the main terminologies i'd like defined. thanks trikers!

[Fuzzy]

Ok first off the PLY stands for how many layers it has. The more layers it is the harder they are to punture and the more weight they can take with out flattening out.

Radial which most tires are now a days means stell belts. And the tire will have some give to it. To help with traction and cournering. And can absorb bumps and smooth out the trails.

Bias are old fashion non steal tires. Some were just rubber with no belts. And some of them ran glass belts. They are hard as a rock with no or at least very little give to them. Not great for traction and a very harsh ride.

[250rAL]

"Radial" and "bias" only means which direction the cords run in the tire. Bias ply tires have cords that run diagonally across the face of the tire. Radials have the cords running at a right angle to the tread directly from bead to bead. Just because a tire is radial doesn't mean it is steel-belted. Steel-belted tires only came out recently for ATV's, while radials have been around since the advent of the TRX250R.