Author Topic: Bicycle pump that works as advertised.  (Read 21596 times)

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Offline Westinghouse

Re: Bicycle pump that works as advertised.
« Reply #30 on: November 10, 2022, 04:07:47 pm »
With the Crank Brothers Sterling pump doing everything it was advertised it would do, what exactly was it advertised to do? As for the answer from froze, I pumped up my 27 by 1 and 1/4 in tires so many times with that pump up to 90 PSI, I can hardly count the number of times. The fact is they're just turning out a bunch of junkie bicycle pumps for the general public. You have to go somewhere special to get a decent piece of equipment. Those pumps that would go to 90 PSI were easy to get and very expensive in the old days.

Offline froze

Re: Bicycle pump that works as advertised.
« Reply #31 on: November 10, 2022, 05:13:13 pm »
I agree, there are a lot more junkie mini pumps vs ones that actually work well; I doubt there is more than a half dozen pumps that work well, and of those, there are about 2 or 3 that work the best.  The test thing I posted testifies to that.  There is no reason to buy any pump other than Lezyne, or Topeak, the rest are questionable, they'll take too many strokes and too much work.  The best one for road bikes is the Lezyne Road Drive large, but even the medium size one outperforms all the others, but it's a lot easier to use the large one, and the large isn't that large, I have one and it's quite compact; heck even the small version performs better than others!  but again, it's about how much work you want to put into inflating a tire on the side of the road, sure the small Road Drive beats all others, but it will take about 60 more strokes than the large version, and I'm sure it will be tough going on those last 100 or so strokes.

Lezyne has a very high-quality build as well, mine is 10 years old and it is still going strong and it still looks good.  Even though I like my Topeak RaceRocket HP, it does not perform up to the standards of the Lezyne Road Drive large, but it is built good, and works better than most others.

Offline Westinghouse

Re: Bicycle pump that works as advertised.
« Reply #32 on: November 10, 2022, 06:20:13 pm »
I looked at advertisements on various pumps and frame pumps. One thing almost all advertisements had in common was this. There was no specific information on how many pumps to produce how much pressure in any kind or size of tire. One said it would do 100 PSI without argument. I do not accept without argument. If I have a 700 by 32 tire I want to know almost exactly how many pumps it takes to get to 90 PSI. Comments like it does the job well, to so many psi without argument, outperforms the others is all bs as far as I'm concerned. If they have a product that can produce a result and so many pushes of the plunger, that's all that matters, and that's all that's missing in the advertisements. Questionable, it's questionable.

Offline ray b

Re: Bicycle pump that works as advertised.
« Reply #33 on: November 11, 2022, 02:00:17 pm »
So you are agitating for an industry standard for reporting on performance.

Great idea.

As notede above, max pressure and volume/pump would be a good start. Median tire volumes could be used to develop tables (an app?) for number of pumps required for a given pressure....
“A good man always knows his limitations.”

Offline froze

Re: Bicycle pump that works as advertised.
« Reply #34 on: November 11, 2022, 03:57:14 pm »
I looked at advertisements on various pumps and frame pumps. One thing almost all advertisements had in common was this. There was no specific information on how many pumps to produce how much pressure in any kind or size of tire. One said it would do 100 PSI without argument. I do not accept without argument. If I have a 700 by 32 tire I want to know almost exactly how many pumps it takes to get to 90 PSI. Comments like it does the job well, to so many psi without argument, outperforms the others is all bs as far as I'm concerned. If they have a product that can produce a result and so many pushes of the plunger, that's all that matters, and that's all that's missing in the advertisements. Questionable, it's questionable.

I agree, they should do this, but they won't because nothing is forcing them to be truthful, like most things advertised, they lie like crazy and no one stops it.

Offline Pat Lamb

Re: Bicycle pump that works as advertised.
« Reply #35 on: November 14, 2022, 11:14:09 am »
Sounds great in theory, but you'd have to be able to specify what tire, on what rim, with what tube, to what pressure.  Otherwise manufacturers get to game the system.  (Parenthetical comments don't make it past marketing into the ad.)

1. Takes 120 strokes to get to 90 psi on a 32 tire. 

2. (We picked the skinniest 32 tire on the market and the skinniest rim we could find,) and it only took 104 strokes.

3. Takes 77 strokes to get to 90 psi (on a 25 tire).

4. Only takes 44 strokes to get to 75 psi (18 tire).

Offline Westinghouse

Re: Bicycle pump that works as advertised.
« Reply #36 on: November 14, 2022, 04:10:42 pm »
When these pump manufacturers and sellers conceal the number of strokes it takes to reach a certain pounds per square inch in different sized tires, it means they don't want you to know. Why else would they conceal it? The fact is most are selling overpriced junk. I had the cheapest little Walmart pump, a stand-up pump. I could get 90 PSI absolute Max in 28 to 35 pumps. The last 8 or 10 would be very short as in lifting the plunger three or four inches and pressing in. The gauge said 160 PSI. It took absolutely every bit of my body weight and strength to get to 90 PSI. That is with a 700x32 tire tube. It used to be easy to get a portable hand pump that would go to 90 PSI in 30 or 35 strokes. They were cheap and lightweight and durable. I wonder why they took those off the market and replace them with junk.

Offline froze

Re: Bicycle pump that works as advertised.
« Reply #37 on: November 14, 2022, 08:39:36 pm »
When these pump manufacturers and sellers conceal the number of strokes it takes to reach a certain pounds per square inch in different sized tires, it means they don't want you to know. Why else would they conceal it? The fact is most are selling overpriced junk. I had the cheapest little Walmart pump, a stand-up pump. I could get 90 PSI absolute Max in 28 to 35 pumps. The last 8 or 10 would be very short as in lifting the plunger three or four inches and pressing in. The gauge said 160 PSI. It took absolutely every bit of my body weight and strength to get to 90 PSI. That is with a 700x32 tire tube. It used to be easy to get a portable hand pump that would go to 90 PSI in 30 or 35 strokes. They were cheap and lightweight and durable. I wonder why they took those off the market and replace them with junk.

I had a Zefal standup pump I got from Walmart about 10 years ago, it lasted 5 years, I didn't pay much for it, so I guess that's why it didn't last long.

There is no way a mini pump would have ever, at any time in the history of mini pumps, pump to 90 psi in 30 to 35 strokes, the pump chamber is too small to allow that to happen, thus physics will not allow that to happen; I was riding bikes when mini pumps first came out and they were the worst ever!  The best one I found was a very small Torelli, forget the model, but that thing could get to 60 psi and after that, it was a huge struggle to get to 65 or 68, and it took a lot of strokes, I don't remember exactly but somewhere around 300 strokes, which would wear me out, god forbid if you did something wrong and had to deflate and redo it!  That one I got sometime in the mid 90s to the late 90s, I held off buying a mini before then because they were horrible, people I knew who got them said they couldn't even get to 50 psi! Even a fat but short pump could pump a lot of air till about 40 psi then it would start to get difficult, so much so that it would be impossible to pump it once it got to around 50 to 55.  Fat pumps are made for low-pressure tires, and skinny pumps are made for high-pressure tires, using a skinning pump on a fat tire would take a huge number of strokes, around 500 to 600 strokes just to get to 50 psi.  Mini pumps have sucked since they first came out, and didn't start getting useable until the last 10 years, and now only a handful are useful.  Mini pumps have always been emergency pumps, get enough air so you can go home, and hopefully without getting a snakebite on the way home.  I carried a frame pump for many years, up until about the mid to late 90s when I got the Torelli, but dreaded ever having to use it.

Offline Westinghouse

Re: Bicycle pump that works as advertised.
« Reply #38 on: November 14, 2022, 11:31:24 pm »
I never wanted a mini pump. The pump I used to have that would go to 90 PSI was more like a frame pump. It was about 18 in long before pulling out the handle. It had a hose that screwed on to the end of the pump. On the other end of the hose wasn't attachment that screwed on to the valve of the tube. I could get to 90 PSI fairly easily. I wonder why they aren't on the market anymore. They only cost $8 or $9. It was like a frame pump. Somebody stole it off the bike. I'm not interested in mini pump. They are junk as far as I am concerned

Offline staehpj1

Re: Bicycle pump that works as advertised.
« Reply #39 on: November 15, 2022, 07:31:05 am »
There is no way a mini pump would have ever, at any time in the history of mini pumps, pump to 90 psi in 30 to 35 strokes, the pump chamber is too small to allow that to happen, thus physics will not allow that to happen;

Some of the minis do get a bit of extra volume for their length by either of two methods.  Some use a push pull scheme to pump on both the push and pull strokes.  Others telescope adding some more volume for their collapsed length.  90 psi in 30 to 35 strokes, no, but they do manage to do a bit better than expected for the diminutive size.

Quote
Mini pumps have always been emergency pumps, get enough air so you can go home, and hopefully without getting a snakebite on the way home.  I carried a frame pump for many years, up until about the mid to late 90s when I got the Torelli, but dreaded ever having to use it.

I have used a few different models of mini pump on tour happily as well as a Topeak Mountan Morph on others.  That was for long tours up to and including a coast to coast ones and running at least 90 psi on most trips.  I can't point to exact models, but I used a lezyne, a blackburn, and an HP if memory serves.  I didn't mind any of them and they were all used on at least multiweek tours if not multi month ones.

Don't get me wrong, when there was a floor pump available I used it :)

Offline froze

Re: Bicycle pump that works as advertised.
« Reply #40 on: November 15, 2022, 10:41:09 am »
There is no way a mini pump would have ever, at any time in the history of mini pumps, pump to 90 psi in 30 to 35 strokes, the pump chamber is too small to allow that to happen, thus physics will not allow that to happen;

Some of the minis do get a bit of extra volume for their length by either of two methods.  Some use a push pull scheme to pump on both the push and pull strokes.  Others telescope adding some more volume for their collapsed length.  90 psi in 30 to 35 strokes, no, but they do manage to do a bit better than expected for the diminutive size.

Quote
Mini pumps have always been emergency pumps, get enough air so you can go home, and hopefully without getting a snakebite on the way home.  I carried a frame pump for many years, up until about the mid to late 90s when I got the Torelli, but dreaded ever having to use it.

I have used a few different models of mini pump on tour happily as well as a Topeak Mountan Morph on others.  That was for long tours up to and including a coast to coast ones and running at least 90 psi on most trips.  I can't point to exact models, but I used a lezyne, a blackburn, and an HP if memory serves.  I didn't mind any of them and they were all used on at least multiweek tours if not multi month ones.

Don't get me wrong, when there was a floor pump available I used it :)

If you have read my earlier posts, I did say there are now a few pumps that do reach 90 psi like the Lezyne Road Drive (larger model makes it easier with less strokes than the two smaller sizes), and the Topeak RaceRocket HP, and according to tests, which I posted the website, there are others that do so as well, but the number of strokes go way up as does the effort involved.  My emergency use only comment was especially aimed at the discussion I was having with another poster who said mini pumps in the old days could pump 90 psi in 35 or so strokes, to which I replied not only was that impossible, even by today's newer mini pumps but back when they first made mini pumps they were for only to get you home at bare minimal PSI.

A huge majority of mini pumps for mtb use are not designed to reach 90 psi, they were designed to put a large volume of psi into a tire fast as possible.

The Topeak Morph is not considered to be a mini pump, it is more of a half-frame pump, sort of like a full-size pump cut in half, whereas a mini pump is half the size of a morph, (all this half-size stuff I'm mentioning is strictly for a rough guide, not to be taken literally).  I own a Topeak Morph myself, I really don't like it, not that it can't reach high psi and do so faster than a mini pump, it's just that if I'm going to that size of a pump I might as well go to a full frame pump which works even better than the Morph does, and both weigh darn near the same, plus the full frame pump doesn't look as ugly as the Morph does!  LOL!! So the Morph just sets in one of my drawers in the garage getting no use, I have reserved it for emergency at home use only should something happen to my floor pump.