I know floor pumps aren't particularly glamorous, but to me they are essential in utility for anyone who cycles a lot.
For the past five or six years, I've been using a cheap $20 Zefal floor pump that I picked up from Wal-Mart, and it's been great. But a couple weeks ago I went to pump up the rear tire on my motorcycle and, in my haste and annoyance of putting air in a tire I'd just topped off a week prior, I pumped it too hard and fast, and the pump broke. I took it apart and found that the rubber gasket had torn and popped off the piston that slides up and down within the cylinder. I found a gasket approximately the same size and put it on, but after reassembly the check valve doesn't work. Anyway, I got my $20 out of the old pump.
I picked up a new floor pump from Harbor Freight for $13, and it worked great on schrader valves. But the included Presta adapter did not thread onto the Presta valves on my bikes, which is more than half the reason for the pump in the first place. So I gave that to a friend who only has Schrader valve bikes and didn't have a floor pump at all.
Anyway, I decided to spend a little bit more and get a Topeak JoeBlow Sport III because I'd read very good things about the TwinHead DX chuck, which I'm happy to report works marvelously. After putting air in the tire, flipping the lever on the chuck to release it does not result in an immediate and rapid loss of air like it did even with the old Zefal pump, but rather it disengages the valve in a way that closes it as the chuck disengages, making for far better air retention and more accurate riding pressure without having to double-check with a separate gauge.
Old Zefal pump next to the new JoeBlow.
The new JoeBlow pump is also very heavy and sturdily built. The base and cylinder are steel, and even the chuck housing is metal (probably aluminum). Very impressed with the quality for $40.
I know a lot of folks swear by Silca pumps, and I'd love to have a SuperPista Ultimate someday, but $400+ for a floor pump is just out of my price range for the foreseeable future. With the way the JoeBlow pump is built, though, hopefully it will give me at least a decade of use, which for me is about three or four times a week, year round. And in the event I'm too vigorous with it and blow out an internal seal, Topeak has
a parts kit to replace them, along with other replacement parts which will hopefully still be available in a decade when I'm likely to need them.
And to make a long topic even longer, I went ahead and ordered a Roadmorph G mini-pump to mount on my Lynskey's frame, because I'd been juggling my 12 year old Harpoon mini-pump between my old Cannondale and the Lynskey for the past year and a half. The Harpoon still works OK but I like having a dedicated pump for each bike so I can't forget to pack it. That bit me once when I was about 20 miles from home on a solo ride and got a flat. Had a patch kit and spare tube, but forgot the pump! A passerby offered their pump but it didn't work on Presta valves. That was a major bummer, but I learned from it and have now hopefully rectified that potential situation from repeating.
The Roadmorph G snugly fits between my bottle cage and front headlight battery. And I now have more room in my rack bag for other cargo.