Specialized Air Tool MTB Flex Pump

Length: 20.5cm
Weight: 152g

This Specialized pump is another conventional-looking pump; short and squat, it has a pleasing chrome finish with a knurled section on the handle for grip. It’s nicely simple – you don’t need to read the instructions or spend ten minutes reverse-engineering it in your mind to figure out how it works. The valve nozzles are attached (Presta and Schrader are neatly at either end of a small T-bar) to a short inch or so of rubber hose, which extends from the end. The head attachment is very simple and well thought out. If you need to switch from one valve-type to the other, you don’t have to take the end of your pump apart and mess around with rubber things you then end up losing in the grass. And screwing the attachment to the valve is made nicely simple – you just turn the end closest to you.

One minor issue is that the hose attaching the valve head to the pump is a little short. I ended up occasionally hitting a spoke and not being able to use the full travel of the pump, which is compromised by the need to store the hose in the barrel. Despite this, the travel felt reasonable, and pumping action is nice and smooth. Another small issue was the barrel lock system: when you turn the handle, it releases so you can then extend the shaft, but when you are madly pumping away it occasionally caught and suddenly locked itself again, which was a little bit annoying. Overall, though, this is a good pump. It’s a nice small size and is easy to chuck in your backpack and forget about.