I think some users value Italian brands more the French.

When I bought my road bike that has a Campy drive train, I decided that some vintage Reg brand water bottle cages that were made in Italy decades ago were the right cages for it. It just occured to me, I have a Zefal on that bike, but a Silca pump in storage. I might need to swap pumps.

I am comparing metal over plastic and not a name. I believe the current pumps by Silca are higher quality and will hold up better than most of the current offerings.

I am more of the, does it work and not leave me stranded connoisseur. French, Italian or Chinese I don't care. The Stompump that I am purchasing next week is made in California. It has evidently ben the subject of jokes on its appearance. It is made of high quality aluminum and has a filter to keep out dirt.

Great advice, I'll have to try it:cheers:

Informative, thanks for the information

Silca Tattico pump takes 300 strokes to get to 85, and anything past 85 took a huge strength effort, whereas the Lezyne Road Drive large took 200 strokes to get to 100 with less effort. The Lezyne Road Drive large weighs 120 grams whereas the Silca Tattico weighs 165.

But there is a newer pump that escaped my radar, that one is made by Topeak called the Roadie 2stage, I saw a video of a guy who pumped the Roadie 2stage to 100 psi never had more than 2 fingers on the pump to show how easy it was to pump, but it took about 350 strokes, This pump has me so intrigued I'm going to have to order it! This video is for the smaller mini version, the longer version won't take near as many strokes, but you can see how easy it is to use, he's just using 2 fingers when he switches to high pressure mode:

Topeak confused me a bit, they make a Roadie 2 stage, and a Roadie TT, and thought the TT had the 2 stage design, it does not evidently, only the 2stage one does, the 2stage one is the easy one to use at high pressure

Last season, or maybe two seasons ago, my riding partner unscrewed his valve core like that. It was cold, getting dark, and we a ways from the finish of a 400k brevet. Fortunately I had a valve tool and my Road Morph with clamp on head.

I have enough to do while prepping for rides; I don't need to add checking valve core tightness to my checklist.

Every time I see one of these threads I think maybe there's an upgrade from my ancient Road Morph. Other than adding a gauge with a G, I'm not seeing it. Must-haves to me are a hose, clamp-on head, and base that allows pumping against the ground. Frame mount means it's always there; again I don't need another checklist item.

I did a rainy 600k around the Olympic Peninsula a few years ago, and afterwards found the pump was full of water. By rainy I mean pretty much 600km of rain. What a slog. Since then I've kept a piece of tape over the head.

I use a Topeak Road Morph pump. I got this to replace my previous Topeak mini pump, which served me well for a dozen years until I wore it out. The Road Morph has a gauge, a hose which can be extended, and a tab which can be used to hold the pump in place with your foot. You can unscrew and reverse the collar on the pump head to switch between presta and Schrader. I have found this pump to be good enough to do the job of a floor pump, it works on road and MTB tires, and can easily pump over 120 psi.

My perspective also, but most of my riding is commuting, and the rest is day rides, no brevets. I tossed the valve tool in my tool bag, and I may never use it.

I'll keep this pump, but I won't buy another screw-on pump for presta valves, and I'll recommend against them.

Threaded chucks have pros and cons, just like press-on chucks. Generally I prefer threaded chucks on mini pumps because they're more compact and put less stress on latex tubes.

I have had a valve core come loose on me once, causing a slow leak that baffled me until I figured out the problem. So now I'm in the habit of checking valve cores often. And I usually carry a valve core wrench, replacement valve core and extension hollow tube (although I have only one set of high profile aero rims and don't really need the valve extensions).

The only problem I've had with latex tubes over the past several years is the valve is attached to a latex patch that is glued to the main body of the tube. The force of press-on chuck in a partially inflated latex tube tends to cause the valve to separate from the tube over time. That's always been the failure point for my Vittoria (and Vittoria-made SIlca) latex tubes. A threaded chuck puts less pressure on that spot with a partially inflated tube.

My floor pump (Nashbar Earl Grey, good and cheap when it was available) has a press-on/clamp-on chuck. When I need to inflate an under-inflated latex tube I'll deflate the tube completely to reduce some of that pressure on the vulnerable glued patch holding the valve in place.

And I need to partially disassemble the floor pump chuck once in awhile to clean it out, otherwise it won't clamp securely on valves. Especially the Vittoria and Silca latex tubes with valves that have smooth aluminum tubes, no threads or knurling to give the clamp-on chuck something to grab securely. The slightest bit of oil, even from my hands, or water can cause the clamp-on chuck to pop loose during inflating, or to leak almost as fast as I can pump. Usually a quick wipe of the valve and chuck cleans it up well enough, but occasionally I need to unscrew the collar that holds the rubber O-rings in place, and clean the O-rings with isopropyl alcohol.

Not long ago I was baffled temperrairelly by a loose presta valve core. I also found that it doesn't take much to separate the presta valves from the tube on those new very thin tubes. I solved this on my floor pump with the Silca Hiro chuck. Jaco makes a presta chuck that you push over the valve and push the top in to release it. I want to adapt this to a mini pump.

I tried this and similar chucks for the hand and floor pumps, and they were useless. Presumably, they are meant exclusively for hoses constantly under pressure, i.e., fed by a compressor.

There is open and closed flow air chucks. The lightning air chucks for bicycles made by Jaco are open flow. Jaco describes there open flow chucks and says you need an additional control device to keep the compressor from constantly sending air through it. They also state that you can have an inline air gauge with openflow. I believe it will work. If not I can send it back.

When the latex valve failed were you applying pressure on the tire under the valve stem to push it up so you could press on the chuck?

This is interesting to know, because a lot of pumps are press on chucks, and this is the first I've heard of this issue with latex tubes.

Thanks

For a decade and a half or so I carried* the two-stage Swedish Quicker Pro, praised by Compass Bikes and Velo Orange back in the day. I'm not sure if it's available anymore; a 'net search indicated 'no'.


*Shrug. I maybe pumped two on-the-road flats with this. I don't get a lot of flats. I dunno. Seemed okay, but I didn't name a child after it or anything.

Surprised to find 4 pages on manual pumps. It seemed like all the cool kids used CO2 for a good bit but are now migrating to those little electric pumps.

So am I going to be lending my HPX out to folk with dead batteries now?

I'm a real big fan of the Lyzene, because my frame has mounts for it. If it wears out and they go under, I'm in trouble, might have to find an old zefal

The cool kids consider phone a friend to be an acceptable outcome.

The current Silca Tattico is certainly built to last and am pretty sure it will outlive me! It gets so little use with tubeless tyres (none basically) I sometimes wonder if it’s overkill to be honest.

I do also have a cheap, tiny micro pump from Chain Reaction. It’s hard work to use and feels a bit flimsy (which is why I bought the Tattico), but it fits much better in a jersey pocket. I carry the Tattico on a bottle mount. It’s fine but quite a piece to just carry around for the ride!

My brother in law gave me a CO2 kit. I haven't used it. I don't trust it. I'll empty the cartridge prematurely or something. And CO2 leaks after a day. What if I need two or three cartridges? My pump is more reliable.

I learned a good tip for using CO2 though. If the cartridge isn't enough to fill your tire and you want to use it with a pump, better to do the pumping first and letting the cartridge top you up. If you use the cartridge first, topping up with the pump takes more force since the pressure is higher.

I have never used a CO2 cartridge, only a pump. But I have witnessed several friends use up their one and only CO2 cartridge and suddenly were out of luck without as much air as they wanted. Or in one case, had to wait for the spouse to pick them up at some road intersection when their spare tube started to leak too.

Yeah carrying only a cartridge seems silly. If you want it to save you the pumping trouble, that's fine.

They don't phone their friends, they phone their mommies.

Yup, they had to phone their mommies to come get their little boys.

I could understand using CO2, put not having a back up plan is just plain stupid considering they make hybrid pumps that do both!