I’m assuming bikes are within the scope of the Forum. If they aren’t they should be.
Any recommendations for portable bicycle pumps?
I’ve bought maybe half a dozen different makes up to about 500NT, and they’ve either not worked at all or fallen apart very quickly. The big ones that also do car tyres work OK, and are a bit more (though still not very) durable, but they aren’t very portable.
Could be I’m not paying enough, but the best made one so far (Chinese thing that looked like a little bottle jack) only cost 50NT. Trouble was the air hose screwed on and was impossible to unscrew without letting most of the air out again. How can they dominate manufacturing and be unable to test an F-ing BICYCLE PUMP?
Anyway, I’m in Tainan but a Tapei source would be OK. I’ll be up there sooner or later.
Just go to a bike shop - they all have quite a few different ones. I have a Topeak floor pump that works great, and also a Topeak mini-pump that is fine for mid-ride emergencies. Both were bought at a local Giant shop.
www.giant.com.tw has a list of dealers organised by city/county.
Beto make a range of very good pumps. I have a floor pump for home and a hand pump for the road. The hand pump is cool as it has two stacked pistons and two cylinders. Twist the handle one way and you have high volume / low pressure to get the tire most of the way full. After that gets too hard you twist the other way and it gives low volume / high pressure to top off. Beto make these pumps OEM for a bunch of more famous brands.
For a “road pump” that is light, small, and gets to 120 psi, I’ve found the Topeak Mini Morph Mini Pump to be the pump of choice. Nashbar and other websites have them. They are made in Taiwan… so they probably have a different model name here.
I second the Topeak minimorphing power ranger pump. I don’t have one myself, but it gets consistent top ratings among serious cyclists world wide.
i have a teeny tiny pump (another Topeak one) cause I’m a weight weenie. plus, i rarely flat because i use tubulars, and that also means mostly i don’t carry a pump, because i don’t have a spare tire with me, and i can ride home on a flat from almost anywhere.
saying that, i am going to get a flat tonight, i just know it!
Yup! Topeak is the way to go. I prefer a model which has a small footpeg, and an air hose, so that the pump can butt against the ground and the other hand can exert more pressure without otherwise pushing against the valve which may cause damage, if not done right.
Well, I must confess I never did get around to seeking this out. My knees joints degenerated to the point where I was only using bicycles for short trips, and had less need for a portable pump.
I still use the bigger stirrup style floor pumps though, mostly for car tyres, but lately I’ve had one knicked, and another one fail after having it about a week.
The school got some (stirrup and foot-pump styles) to chain up for student use and they all failed pretty quickly too, though they were apparently slightly lower quality than mine, which was/is Yuanshin brand (Model YS-5941)
One snag with the all-night-hardware store floor pumps is they are pressed or welded together, so you can’t easily strip them down when they stop working.
So my amended query would be “Any recommendations for a field maintainable stirrup-style manual floor pump. Could be metal or plastic. Needn’t have a pressure gauge.”
I realise that I’ll have to spend more than all-night-hardware-store prices to get something that might last and is fixable (If the latter quality is available).
I don’t like the foot pumps or the wee electric compressor things, having had a few of both fail in short order in the UK.
Not sure what you mean by “stirrup-style”, but I would still recommend a Topeak brand floor pump. They are fully rebuildable and reliable. I worked in bicycle shops for several years before moving to Taiwan and always recommended the Topeak pumps over any other. Avoid hardware stores and go to a bike shop.
Thanks. Wasn’t confident of getting any response on the rebuildable aspect, since its probably not something that most people (especially in Taiwan) care about, and its not necessarily something you can fully assess in the shop.
