Photo credit 
​Dominic, et al., directors. MotoSport. MotoSport, 1 Nov. 1968, www.motosport.com/dunlop-sportmax-q3-rear-tire.
Andy, director. MotoSport. MotoSport, www.motosport.com/cheng-shin-rear-paddle-tire.

 The physics of different motorcycle tires are largely varying depending on of the motorcycle you are riding. Street bikes have large, round, smooth, tires sometimes called sticky tires. Where a dirt bike riding in the sand will have a large tire with paddles on it. One may think that a tire works off of the same principles that friction is used from the ground to propel the bike forward, but this is not the case for all tires. In the case of a street tire, the friction from the ground is used to propel the bike forward. The manufacturer of the tire must make sure the tire has a large 𝛍ₛ to keep the tire from slipping on the pavement so that when the bike accelerates it will not lose grip on the ground and crash. This, however, is not the case for the paddle tire. The paddle tire is designed to be hard and rather than try and grip the top surface of sand, it breaks the surface and digs deep, throwing a paddle full of sand backward, this causes thrust. The best way to start moving forward with a paddle tire requires getting high RPM so the paddles are constantly throwing sand backward this displacement of sand is the source for both thrust and the movement forward.

Photo credit 
​“Paddle Tire.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 19 May 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paddle_tire.