velopaul

Most experienced cyclists seem to believe that for tyre pressures, higher is better. I have read that punctures are less frequent if you keep your tyres hard - like 120 psi.

I have just fitted Hutchinson Fusion 3 tubeless tyres onto Fulcrum 2 way fit wheels. The blurb with the tyres says the tyres will puncture less because they are softer and the rolling resistance is lower because the tyre doesn't waste energy by bouncing on the road surface and because there are no tubes creating friction within the tyre.

I weigh 80 kg and my first rides have been with the tyres at 90 psi.

Will I roll faster if I increase the pressure? I am using Stans sealant because of the amount of glass on our roads and I've read that the higher the pressure the less effective it is in sealing punctures.

Hard, soft, fast, slow - there's a lot of conflicting advice and I'm not sure how to trade off the factors.

bigbadwullf

what works best for you is best. I run 110 rear/ 105 up front. I weigh 220lbs. Too little pressure and you get too much rolling resistance. Too much pressure and your tires will skip along the road surface and cause "chatter" and loss of effective tire roll.
You will reach a happy medium in there somewhere and that depends on you, your weight, your bike, air temperature, your current tires and the road surface.

Higher pressure will help with flats from the tire compressing the tube against the rim(pinch flat) but will allow other things (nails, thorns) to puncture the tire easier.

Experiment and have fun.

Road Fan

Another "layer" is tire width. What's comfy and feels quick on a 23 mm tire is a higher pressure than what will be similarly good for a 28 mm tire.

Google "Heine Berto tire pressures" to find an article that explains one strategy for an optimum pressure. I usually go a little higher than this article recommends.

Tundra_Man 

When I bought my TT bike the guy at the LBS told me to inflate the tires to 120 PSI. Since that time I've been experimenting by slowly been decreasing the air pressure used.

I've never had a flat on this bike, nor have I noticed any loss in speed. The most noticable difference is that at 90 PSI I have a lot fewer fillings rattle loose than I did at 120 PSI.

fietsbob

As tire volume goes up, wider tires, the operating PSI is lower.

XR2

I use this chart with good results. I run 700X32 as well.

vol

Do you guys all hand pump the tires? How can you pump it to 100 psi? Do you all have power muscles? I can barely pump it to 60 psi and there is no way for me to reach the 85 psi max.

Booger1

Best frame pump made.Has low and high pressure.Still buy rebuild kits for them.You can pump the tire off the rim if you want.

Steely Dan

if you're struggling to get to 60psi, then you need to get a better floor pump. i can easily inflate the tires on my road bike to their max 145psi with my floor pump, (though i usually only roll them @ 135psi)

tagaproject6

Get a better quality floor pump.

Nermal

Aside from pump quality, the design makes a lot of difference. If it has a large cylinder bore, it moves lots of air per stroke but it is hard to get the higher pressures. A small bore takes a lot of strokes per cubic inch, but it is easier to get the higher pressures. This works out pretty well because high pressures don't have a lot volumn to be filled.

If you are looking at inexpensive pumps, look at the head design. If it's made for Schrader valves only, you will definately have problems getting high pressures out of it.

tagaproject6

The problem with experience and experts would be that there are always different camps and they all think they are correct and all have data to prove that they hold gospel truth.

Take the route that is most useful to you. Experiment with the different pressures and see which you prefer, regardless of perceived prone to flats. Once you make that decision, you will fall into one camp and find yourself in good company.

In my experience, I find 100psi on 700x23 tires work well for the riding I do within the environment I frequent. YMMV.

vol

Thanks for replies to my question. My pump is this. Opinions?

I have a question about the gauge reading (I had never used a gauge before): When I push the handle to pump, the gauge hand goes up to, say, 55~60 psi, then when I stop pushing and start pulling the handle to draw air, the reading immediately "collapses" back to 40 psi or lower. Is this what it's supposed to be like? Is the highest reading (the 55~60, which only stays for as long as my hand holds down the handle with force) the one that counts?

(Trying to add to my set of dummy questions )

catonec 

a good floor pump will pump up to 160 easily. I have a blackburn thats going on 15 years old and still rockin. I run both tires right around 110.

cyccommute 

...in 1985

Best one today?



Buy whichever flavor you need for road or mountain bike.

I've used and liked the Zefal HP. It was a good pump but the Topeak is much easier to use. Nothing is worse than ripping out a stem on the last tube you have on your repair bag. Especially when you are right at the pressure you want. Easy to do with the Zefal. Not so easy with the Topeak.

cyccommute 

You are having a problem that I see all to often with people trying to pump up tires. They push down on the pump handle and when they start to get resistance, they stop and pull the handle back up. When you get resistance, you are compressing the air in the pump chamber and pressurizing the pump hose. However, you haven't yet got the air past the tube stem. You have to push the pump handle all the way down until it stops. That's the bottom of the pump chamber and the air is pushed past a check valve and into the tube. The check valve holds the air in the tube/tire while you draw the pump handle back up.

It takes a good amount of force to get the air compressed in the bottom of the pump too. This means putting your full weight on the pump handle. If you are small or lightweight, it may be harder to do.

stapfam

Have a floor pump for home use but pump on the bike is always a problem. Best one I have found is the topeak Morph series. Have a Morph G on one bike and the mini morph on the other. Last week and a puncture on the bike with the mini morph. Shorter stroke on this pump so it takes a bit longer to inflate the tyre. Pumped the tyre up to what I thought was near normal pressure of 120psi and it was not difficult- not difficult at all. Got home and checked pressure and it was 125psi. Most pumps I have used will not get above 90psi and it takes a lot of energy to get to that.

Booger1

And 2011.

Zefal HP X3 is ALL aluminum,has 3 times the volume,has 2 STAGES so it's NEVER hard to pump,has stood the test of time.I can pump a tire light years faster than road morph,and easier to boot.

Make sure to report back in 20-30 years and let us know how the PLASTIC road morphs are doing....

New and improved always equals better....ask Coke.

cyccommute 

Road Morphs aren't plastic. They have some plastic parts - just like the Zefal does - but the important bits are all aluminum.

I've had that pump, as well as the HP, the HP-X and the HP-X 4, in the past. First, the HP-X doesn't have 2 stages. Zefal doesn't say anything about a low and high pressure setting. The X part is a release so that you can mount them in your frame and have a good chance that the pump won't jump out of your frame so that you run it over. That the fate of most of the Zefal pumps I've owned. Or the head - the plastic bit on the pump - has broken off.

Second, as I said, I've owned Zefals. If Topeak didn't make the Morph pumps, I'd probably still use one. But they are far from perfect. There are multiple features on the Topeak that are far better than the Zefal. The fact that you don't have to hold the pump head and the wheel while pumping is probably number one. But the gauge on the Topeak is worth it's weight in gold. With the Zefal, I'd pump up on the side of the road, remove the chuck, check the pressure with a gauge, reattach the pump, pump some more, rinse and repeat as needed. Sure you could just pump it up until it 'felt' hard but that's only guessing at the pressure. With the Topeak, you just pump until you get to the right pressure - shown clearly on the gauge - and remove it.

I've also owned two stage pumps from Zefal. I can even tell you where you can find it because I threw it into the trees on the start of an impromptu 5 mile hike back to my car when it would not put air back in the tire.

Booger1

Whether Zefal knows they built a 2 stage pump,I don't know,but they did.

If you set it at hp and pump until it get hard,then set it at x,it gets MUCH easier to pump because it's not filling the chamber as full,so your not compressing as much air.The filling process slows down,but you could pump the tire off of the rim if you wanted to.

This works the same with ANY X series pump.The 1,2,3,4 thing is only the mounting lenght of the pump.I never was any good at following instructions,guess that's how I found out.

rekmeyata

Floor pumps....hmmm, I have, though worn out now, a expensive Torelli floor pump I got in the early 80's and it was substantial pump that cost some money. So when it wore out I decided to go cheap and bought a Zefal floor pump from Walmart?! Yup. And it works just as good as the Torelli did for a lot less money. I figure by the time I spend a lot of money for one good pump I could buy 3 or 4 of the cheap Zefal's and would still come out ahead in the long run. But so far after 3 years of use the Zefal is going strong, and the gauge is accurate. My only minor complaint about the Zefal is the base pad, or foot holder, is made of medium weight plastic, so care needs to be given that you don't break it, but so far that hasn't broke, and it effortlessly pumps as high as I want to go.