Say you have bicycle tire moving with constant velocity. Since the point of contact with the surface remains stationary, so tire will not slide even on an icy surface. But if pushed tangentially to it or in any other direction so as to provide a net torque in its initial direction of travel. It will result in acceleration (translational) of the center of mass as well as an angular acceleration to the whole wheel resulting a tangential (linear) acceleration to the point of contact also. So to prevent sliding of the wheel the force friction must act in the forward direction(i.e opposite to the intended linear one). That sounds quite reasonable.
But on working with ramps. Say a an initially stationary wheel accelerated due to the force of gravity along the ramp. The force friction acts opposite to the direction of the travel of the CM.
Why there is a change in way the frictional force vector is assigned? ( Does it has something to do with torques and moment of arms.)
What if in the former case (horizontal) instead of tangential force the force is due to internal sources (say a bowling ball with gyroscope sort of thing)?
Image Courtesy : Fundamentals of Physics by Resnick, Halliday and Walker