Truflo Mountain CNC

Length:  24cm
Weight: 135g

The Truflo Mountain CNC resembles a traditional pump when it’s not deployed: it’s got a slim black aluminium barrel, and the handle has a hole in the top into which the hose and valve adapter fits – but appearances can be deceiving. The hose pulls out of the handle six inches or so, and then stops. On the end is the same Flexihead Presta or Schrader adapter as the Axiom Exterminateair HV: a simple twist of the adapter and you should be good to go with either.

The pump, then, actually works upside down – you screw the adapter onto your valve of choice, keep the ‘handle’ steady, and pump with the barrel. The whole thing seems very well constructed: there’s lots of nice machining, there’s little play in the shaft, and it’s slightly (but not excessively) weighty. There’s a little rubberised logo on the end, and lots of snazzy laser-etched graphics around the handle.

But I had some issues, which are unfortunately concerning the heart of the pump – or more specifically the valve adapter. It was perfect with Schrader valves: just push in, screw on, and pump away – but I couldn’t get it to work at all with Presta valves. I’d push it on OK, but I couldn’t get it to screw on, and I ended up losing more air than I put in. Several of us attempted to get it to work to no avail. It’s possible that ours was a flawed sample, but there was another issue: in use, the inverted design meant that holding the pump without pinching the palm of my hand was rather tricky, and some rather contrived hand positions had to be adopted.

Nicely made and well constructed, but with one or two fatal flaws.

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Barney Marsh

Barney Marsh takes the word ‘career’ literally, veering wildly across the road of his life, as thoroughly in control as a goldfish on the dashboard of a motorhome. He’s been, with varying degrees of success, a scientist, teacher, shop assistant, binman and, for one memorable day, a hospital laundry worker. These days, he’s a dad, husband, guitarist, and writer, also with varying degrees of success. He sometimes takes photographs. Some of them are acceptable. Occasionally he rides bikes to cast the rest of his life into sharp relief. Or just to ride through puddles. Sometimes he writes about them. Bikes, not puddles. He is a writer of rongs, a stealer of souls and a polisher of turds. He isn’t nearly as clever or as funny as he thinks he is.

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