(Jon Noring) wrote in message . com...
Everyone,

When I started this thread asking about floor-type bicycle pumps, I
was hoping to get good consumer-related information so I know what's
out there, and which floor-type air pumps are rated the best by actual
comparison with one another (the only way to know the better ones from
the worse ones is by actual comparison between them!)

Hi, in the PerformanceBike.com catalog they show efficency specs for
many of their pumps. The rating is based on strokes to inflate both a
MTB tire and a road tire. An example would be 43/24.
That rating is for the Topeak Joe Blow Sport, which I bought recently.
I liked that besides the two sided head for Presta, and Schraeder, it
also has
ball/mattress adaptors. I have no basis for comparison, other than the
crappy pumps of my youth, but this one works fine. I have used it both
for topping off tires and for replacing tubes. I got it on sale for
around $21, it lists for $34.99
Performance has a number of pumps on sale, at this time:
http://www.performancebike.com/shop/...18&Sub_ID=4360

Life is Good!
Jeff





Considering how ubiquitous floor-type bicycle pumps are, and the
importance they are to the bicycle enthusaist, it surprises me that no
recent article in a bicycle magazine (or Consumer Reports as a matter
of fact) has appeared doing an *exhaustive* comparison of floor-type
bicycle pumps. In fact, I find this lack of information outright
strange.

Here's are some of the things the comparison would assess:

1) Number of pumps and the force needed to fill up a lower pressure
tire (e.g., mountain bike, automobile), and number of pumps and
overall effort to fill a tire up to very high pressure.

2) Overall assessment of durability and reliability (e.g., does it use
cheap, flimsy plastic parts, or high quality parts?)

3) Assessment of ergonomics.

4) Quality, accuracy and precision of built-in pressure gauge.

5) Cost

6) Warranty, parts availability, and repairability.

Considering how inexpensive these pumps are (in the cosmic scheme of
things), a bicycle magazine could certainly do this comparitive study
quite easily and inexpensively. In so doing, it will accelerate the
improvement of these air pumps by forcing companies to try to outdo
one another to build a better air pump.

Now, with what little information I could find, the bicycle pump that
seems to be the "current reference standard" for floor-type air pumps
is the Blackburn TP-5:

http://www.blackburndesign.com/WEBREADY/03teampump.html

It is a clever design in that it has two settings: very high volume
for low pressure filling (such as automobile and mountain bike tires),
and a low volume, high pressure setting. Thus, when filling up a tire,
one can start out at high volume and put a lot of air in to start out
with, and then once the pressure builds up where pumping gets
difficult, one switches to the high pressure setting -- it fills up
much more slowly, but it takes a lot less force to achieve very high
pressures. Quite clever, actually.

Comments? Criticisms?

Jon Noring