Posted by Posted by Tourist in MSN When I was in my 20s and had a bike with tubular tires, tried to get over 100 PSI in them. That was before I realized that what really mattered was the suppleness of thr tire casing, not so much how high the pressure was (or looked at another way, how hard the road felt when you hit a bump).
I had a plastic frame fit Silca (still have it, have not used it in years), and one time when I got perturbed with how much trouble I had in getting much pressure, I calculated out the inside diameter of the pump tube, and from that calculated how many pounds of force I had to push my two hands together if there was no friction when you are pumping it that way, and was shocked to learn that there was no way I would ever be able to get the recommended pressure.
When I first saw the Lezyne and Toppeak pumps that had a foot rest, yet were small enough to carry on a bike, I knew that was the answer to life's problems.
My narrowest tire on any of my bikes is 28mm now, that still needs some good pressure, but since that rarely goes very far from home, I carry the Zefal HPX on it. I can ride that a short distance with less pressure. My rando bike, that as 32mm tires, also carry a Zefal frame fit pump on it, but when I ride a brevet I carry one of my pumps with a foot piece in the saddle bag.
I have used the old Silca plastic and Zefal frame pumps. I have a Road Morph but don't like being that low to pump with my foot on that little holder. I was going to get the new Silca Impero II but saw the Stompump. I will probably get it next month and deflate a tire or two and practice to get used to it. I don't need high pressure on my Pangea Rohloff. I have the Schwalbe 2" wide Marathon Supreme tires on it . I was running the rear at 50 psi or more when I noticed the Silca tire pressure calculator. Using the measured tire width of 47mm, I know run the rear at 41 psi. I have some Schwalbe 2.125 Pickup tires ordered and the pressure should be a bit lower on those. The Stompump has a 60 psi max rating and one reviewer stated that the difficulty Level increased after 40 psi.
