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Inflation. It’s hitting the headlines everywhere at the moment. But what about inflators? And small, portable inflators at that? Yes, we’re talking about mini pumps!
What is a mini pump? A mini pump is any pump small enough to take with you on a ride. How small a pump needs to be entirely depends on where you’re going to be storing it.
If you ride with a backpack, a mini pump can be relatively big. If you’re a bumbaggist, a pump needs to be a bit smaller. If you stash things in your jersey pockets – or attach things to your bike – you’re going to really prioritise a dinky mini pump.
Sure, you can use CO2 cartridges but, let’s face it, they are something of a gamble. And not the single-use nature of them is not exactly eco is it?
In the video below, seasoned hot air producers Benji and Hannah waffle on and on about what they think is important to look out for in a mini-pump. Valve locks, mini hoses, big handles, T-handles, foot-hitches, plastic, metal, weight, brand, how small is too small? Portability versus useability. All that sort of jazz.
They also delve into the bags to pull out what mini pumps they’ve ended up going with over the years. It’s funny what mini pump you end up sticking with. Quite often it isn’t a pump you would have chosen to pluck off the shop shelves beforehand.
The proof is in the pumping.
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0:04
[Music]
0:12
because i
0:13
used to break a lot of valves
0:16
by popping them up in a very sunny rage
0:19
you might want something that's going to
0:20
nail it when you pump it up and you're
0:22
going to get cold if you're there go
0:24
give them yourself rsi go
0:26
oh gosh so painful
0:31
so if you're shopping for a mini pump
0:33
there's every chance you're on the
0:34
website and you've got a whole array and
0:36
you've sorted them from cheapest to most
0:38
expensive because what other way is
0:40
there to sort them um and now you're
0:41
wondering which one to pick so we think
0:44
that there are some key features that
0:46
you should look out for and maybe
0:47
eliminate some off that list
0:50
so ng
0:51
right
0:52
first question
0:54
what size is
0:56
a mini pump it depends what bike you're
0:58
going for now obviously we are talking
1:00
about mountain biking mostly but some of
1:03
us ride gravel bikes and some of us ride
1:05
other sorts of bikes too other bikes are
1:07
available
1:08
um and so
1:09
one thing with mini pumps is
1:12
that the volume of them the amount of
1:15
air that they push out might matter
1:17
depending on whether you've got a great
1:18
big mountain bike tire okay yeah or a
1:21
road bike tire okay now a mountain bike
1:24
tire you're gonna have to get it up to
1:27
at very most 40 psi maybe if you're like
1:30
reseating something
1:32
hinge flattening yeah yeah um whereas a
1:34
road bike tire you're gonna have to get
1:35
it up to
1:37
120 or something like that aren't you
1:39
maybe depends on what you are and what
1:41
size you think isn't it so there's still
1:43
some old schoolers running 21 mills 300
1:45
and somewhere but i think most modern
1:47
things get up to about 80. don't they
1:48
yeah
1:49
these days 28. so
1:51
you're doing like a trade-off between
1:54
the the size of the pump the volume that
1:57
it's outputting and then the pressure
1:59
that it's going to get up to i suppose
2:01
is it
2:02
that it's going to be portable size
2:05
yeah right so you're going to have to
2:07
take it with you in your bag yep
2:09
but then even that might depend on like
2:11
if you're going off into the back of
2:13
beyond you might want something that's
2:15
gonna
2:16
nail it when you pump it up and it's
2:18
gonna get it over and done with quickly
2:20
because it's peeing it down with rain
2:22
and you're going to get cold if you're
2:23
there go
2:24
give them yourself rsi so for example
2:27
something quite small like this you're
2:29
gonna have to do a lot of rapid pumping
2:31
to get a big volume mountain bike tire
2:34
up to that's probably as small as you
2:37
can it's just about as much
2:40
whereas there's no valve locking on that
2:42
one no we'll come on to that one yeah
2:44
whereas this one great big pump and
2:47
it puts air in both on the in-stroke and
2:50
the outstroke because it's got like a
2:51
double chamber in it so you're going to
2:54
get pumped up a lot quicker with that
2:56
but you got to carry it around and you
2:57
get massively tired a lot quicker with
2:59
double pumping pumps in my experience oh
3:02
okay well whenever i've loaned this one
3:03
out to people they've been like whoa
3:05
that's really good
3:06
so yeah so that's your trade-off then
3:10
with uh you've got to get up to whatever
3:12
pressure and that's probably fine for
3:14
mountain bikes but if you are going to
3:15
use it for a road bike then you need to
3:17
check what the maximum pressure will get
3:18
up to pressure so you want gauge
3:21
is it worthwhile
3:23
there's one on there there's one there
3:24
so this is a this pump is a dual
3:26
function
3:28
okay it's to do shock and
3:31
tires okay so it has a little
3:34
adjustment on the bottom between high
3:36
pressure and high volume okay so you
3:38
don't have to make the choice right
3:39
however it's a bit of a compromise to be
3:41
honest that it sort of doesn't really do
3:44
your tires that well okay um but it does
3:46
have a gauge on it
3:48
which uh particularly on a shock pump i
3:50
guess is kind of useful
3:52
but uh
3:53
the gauge has got to be useful so this
3:56
one goes all the way up to
3:58
300 okay psi
4:02
which it needs to be for a shock but it
4:04
doesn't need to be for your tires and
4:06
that means that the
4:07
the scale as you get up to
4:10
your tires like 20 or 18 now you can't
4:12
really tell the difference between
4:14
17 psi and 20 but you can when you're
4:18
riding right so
4:20
gauges
4:22
yeah what other features are going to be
4:24
useful then
4:26
well aside from inflating them
4:28
again what bike you're using i like to
4:31
have a pump that does both presta and
4:33
schrader because i ride a bmx
4:36
so i and also my cargo bike has trader
4:39
valves and
4:40
you can save someone else's day as well
4:42
yeah which is always nice so um so
4:46
how pumps do that
4:49
varies like this one
4:51
is super easy and it's all labeled and
4:54
everything so yeah it just says presta
4:57
and schrader and you just choose which
4:59
end you want
5:01
whereas this one perhaps a failing of
5:05
my favorite pump so far is you have to
5:07
undo this thing and then you have to
5:09
flip a thing inside it out
5:11
and there's a bit of a faff
5:13
uh this one yeah had a completely
5:15
detachable uh thing which i've lost so
5:18
uh total fail on that front i think most
5:20
pops convert don't they buy
5:22
on screen flicking it around yeah and it
5:24
is a faff so like if you've got one of
5:26
the hose like that that's good so
5:29
choose which sort of valves you're going
5:30
to need
5:31
um another feature is whether or not
5:33
they have a hose and how they attach to
5:36
the the valve
5:38
so
5:40
having a hose is really good
5:43
because as you're pumping you're not
5:45
putting any pressure on the valve
5:48
whereas like this one you put it on and
5:50
you lock it on like that and that does
5:53
give a really nice tight attachment
5:56
but then you have to be careful that you
5:57
hold this end still you do kind of saw
6:00
it because you can waggle it yeah
6:03
this one doesn't have any locking
6:05
feature at all so there's even more like
6:07
oh you've got to hold it just in the
6:08
right place yeah i think that one i
6:09
suppose is
6:11
possibly aimed at road cyclists he would
6:13
keep that in a jersey pocket wouldn't
6:14
that suppose small enough yeah like a
6:16
proper emergency pump which has its
6:18
place certain rides and races so
6:21
yeah and then another thing you might
6:22
want to look for is a bleed valve which
6:25
this one does have
6:27
a little bleed valve on the end there
6:28
that's super useful if you go too far
6:31
then you can just press the bleed valve
6:33
yeah let the air back out whereas with
6:35
this one you've got to take it off the
6:37
valve go
6:38
on the end of your belt and then put it
6:40
back on your bleed valve's good for when
6:42
you're um pumping up a tubeless system
6:45
that has repaired itself and gone soft
6:48
and you kind of pump it up check whether
6:49
it's
6:50
in a hold and you can let some air out
6:52
so it's kind of you yeah
6:54
finger squidge pressure that's your
6:56
pressure gauge in it
6:57
uh and then one other thing i'd say is
7:00
the ergonomics of it um yeah like the
7:03
handles of them things what um
7:05
what is good and bad
7:09
so
7:09
finger trapping yeah is the thing like
7:12
oh the disproportionate pain of catching
7:15
particularly a cold finger on the trail
7:18
in in your pump
7:21
so like this one
7:22
uh
7:23
you're not really gonna put your finger
7:25
in there because you've got plenty to
7:27
hold on yeah and it overlaps some of
7:29
them like end
7:31
against one another and then that oh god
7:33
so painful
7:35
um
7:35
this one has a little handle that folds
7:38
out and then a foot as well
7:41
it effectively turns into a mini track
7:43
pump on the trail and again as you're
7:46
pumping you see it stops there whereas
7:48
i've had some of these where you get
7:50
like all set up to really pump and then
7:52
you just trap your finger in between
7:54
there and there oh gosh so painful so
7:57
decide
7:59
what bikes you want to use it for
8:01
decide the circumstances that you're
8:03
likely to be using it like is it just
8:05
kind of a nice to have to stop you
8:06
having to push home or is it life saving
8:08
out on the trail because you're going to
8:10
get hypothermia that's good brands are
8:11
worth staying with i mean if you could
8:13
it less is more so it can be quite hard
8:16
to choose upon power i think because
8:17
they think why am i paying them it's not
8:18
going to be hard now because we've told
8:20
them what to look for don't get one for
8:21
five quid that has the same lack of
8:23
features as one that's from
8:25
a decent brand because things that are
8:27
happening inside the problem that you
8:28
can't see is where all the money is and
8:30
you get spares and things like that on
8:32
top of that
8:33
design one is totally rebuildable aren't
8:35
they yeah all the decent brands are good
8:38
so for that sort of thing yep so go out
8:41
there do your filming you definitely
8:42
need one i suppose that's one thing to
8:44
say you you don't oh yeah
8:46
without some kind of inflation very far
8:48
from home or it will go wrong now some
8:51
will say that you don't need one of
8:53
these and you just need a co2 canister
8:57
do you have views on that
8:59
i do
9:00
ride most rides with a co2 cash from my
9:03
house where i can see my house most of
9:05
the time while i'm on the ride
9:07
where i do go out
9:10
um i've had
9:11
i've tried to rely on co2 canisters
9:15
enough times to know that it's a 50 50.
9:19
really isn't it i mean maybe it's just
9:20
practice and not being so good at them
9:22
but um
9:25
they're all right but i certainly
9:27
wouldn't do anything where
9:29
you've gone somewhere and you want to
9:31
spend the whole day riding and then oh i
9:33
can't go any further because i've relied
9:34
on a co2 that's before getting into the
9:38
reusability stacks and all that kind of
9:40
thing that's my that's my
9:43
quibble with them is that they're just
9:45
they're just disposable stuff
9:47
and
9:47
i like these because you can use them
9:49
again and again and again and you can
9:51
rescue other people as well which is
9:53
always feels good
9:55
right we've been talking about pumps all
9:56
these pumps here are our own pumps we've
9:59
brought in some good some bad uh hannah
10:02
which is your pump and which is
10:04
the one that you like the most
10:06
well this is my pump and this is the one
10:08
that i've been
10:10
using for a long while and is it it is a
10:13
mountain tt twin turbo by
10:18
yeah
10:19
um and
10:21
yeah i've been kind of
10:23
talking evangelically about this pump on
10:25
the trail for quite some time because
10:27
like i say every time i've loaned it to
10:28
everyone anyone they've been like oh wow
10:30
that's really efficient and it does
10:32
reinflate your tyres really quickly
10:35
however having been here today and
10:37
slightly eyeing up those lazy ones with
10:39
a super easy presta schrader swap i do
10:42
like this one
10:44
but i need to swear by that one but then
10:46
that's what a minnie mouse had another
10:48
toe peak mini more like a mini foot pump
10:50
one that's quite good but then someone
10:53
i was i encountered on a ride had one of
10:56
these
10:57
and i used this i thought that's
10:58
absolutely well good because it's
11:00
basically an old traditional
11:02
road pump used to keep on your top tube
11:05
underneath two pegs like that put
11:06
through a shrinkalizer
11:08
from danger mouse
11:09
and um
11:11
that's that's just so good yeah because
11:13
i
11:15
used to break a lot of valves by popping
11:18
them up in a bit of a semi rage
11:20
or just not being very careful with them
11:22
and presto valves
11:24
pros cons they aren't particularly tough
11:26
things are they so it's good that it
11:27
takes all the strain out of that
11:30
i have realized in doing this video that
11:32
i actually have from my roadie days
11:35
believe it or not i had roadie days um i
11:37
have another lasagne mini pump and it's
11:40
like it is a roadie titchy tiny one yeah
11:42
and it wasn't so good for on the
11:43
mountain bike because it just took too
11:45
much too much pumping
11:47
however i'm now wondering whether maybe
11:49
i should just dig it down put up with
11:50
the rsi or buy a slightly bigger one
11:52
like that yeah
11:54
cool all right so we've been through a
11:56
bunch of the features that you can find
11:58
on a pump and some of them are more
12:00
useful than others hopefully now you're
12:01
a bit better informed about when you go
12:03
shopping off you go choose your pump
12:06
bye
12:08
[Music]
12:09
[Applause]
12:25
you
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