Originally Posted by
unterhausen
It increases the trail, so it's more stable. It doesn't seem to be too much of a problem because assemblers at department stores have been putting the forks together backwards for a very long time.
And the customers don't know enough to switch them back.
Yeah, but it also pulls the front wheel way back behind the head axis (crown and hub offset both reversed), so the whole bike becomes unbalanced. Have you ever tried it? I have for a laugh when I was a kid. They ride like total crap.