Airwave Motion

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Airwave
Length: 29.5cm  
We
ight: 168g

The Airwave Motion has the look of a pump designed by a committee. Or by a clever engineer in a shed full of spare parts. That’s not to say it’s not a good pump, but there are a lot of ‘Why did they do this?’ aspects to it.

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The pump itself is made up of a slim-looking pair of barrels which, while compact, looks ungainly on its bottle-boss mount, so it’s been mostly kept in a pack. To step in and save the day (or at least the puncture), the pump first hinges to reveal the main, alloy barrel with fold-out stirrup and folding T-handle. The second part is a rigid, plastic barrel that hinges out in two possible directions. At the end of this is a pop-out 20cm flexible hose with a regular, reversible lever chuck on the end. This lets you stand comfortably away from the wheel while pumping furiously.

The stroke is a short 140mm and the barrel is slim, yet the ergonomics are very good and allow enough frenzied pumping to get even a 2.5in tyre hard within minutes. I can’t for the life of me work out what the rigid, plastic barrel adds to the functionality apart from adding a very vulnerable-looking hinge at the base of the pump. For the moment, though, it’s working perfectly and despite the odd looks, is staying in my pack.

An oddball design that works a lot better than it looks. Oh, and it’s excellently cheap.

Review Info

Brand: Airwave
Product: Motion
From: Hotlines, hotlines-uk.com
Price: £16.00
Tested: by Chipps for
Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 22 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)

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