Tourist in MSN

When I wrote up that comparison of Lezyne and Topeak pumps eight years ago that I cited above in post 12 (link below), it did not occur to me that after an additional eight years, that those two manufacturers would still be the favorites for most people and that the comparison would still be useful.

rekmeyata

I have both as well and have to disagree with your assessment of the two. Don't get me wrong, the Topeak is a fine pump, but I would rate it in second place to the Lezyne. The Topeak takes about 200 more strokes to get to 90 psi vs the Lezyne, you can have all the comfort in the world, but those extra 200 strokes are very difficult and uncomfortable to do. I would much rather have a pump that can inflate to 90 psi in 200 fewer strokes, it makes life a lot easier on the arms.

On a 25c tire to get to 90 PSI with the Topeak you will need 400 strokes, give or take a half a dozen, while you only need 200 for the Lezyne, give or take a half a dozen.

And the Lezyne Road Drive large version is slightly longer by 2 inches than the Topeak RaceRocket HPX, that extra length of the pump give more area for my hand to hold onto with, so personally I think the ergonomics is better with the Lezyne.

I also think the build quality of the Lezyne is better, but neither have broken for over 10 years, so that could be moot point.

But either the Topeak Race Rocket HPX or the Lezyne Road Drive Large, are the two best pumps currently made for road bikes, but the Lezyne is a much better pump though it does cost more.

The Topeak RaceRocket HP is a smaller pump than the HPX, the HP will take more strokes than the HPX, which is why I would never buy a shorter pump anymore.

John Valuk

I used some textured heat shrink tubing to add a little more grip to my Road Drive.

noglider 

I haven't tested a lot of mini pumps, but I am happy enough with my Topeak RaceRocket Mini Pump. It pumps both kinds of valves without leaking. I like it enough that I got a second. As mentioned above, all of these represent compromises, so I won't say I'm elated, but I am fairly picky, and a cheapo probably would not satisfy me.

Rick

I am going to use my allowance next month to purchase a Silca Impero II pump. The longest one will fit in the mattress tube Of my Arkel T-54 panniers. I already spent this months allowance on a Tubus Expedition front rack and new tires. I emailed Silca and they told me that the Imporo will put out around twice the output of there Gravelero pump.

Tourist in MSN

That looks very similar to my old Zefal pumps. I did a quick check and Zefal HPX is out of production, so the Silca might be the only new metal frame fit pump left on the market.

I have a plastic Zefal frame fit pump on my rando bike, a Zefal HPX on my road bike.

If you decide to use your Silca as a frame fit pump, I suggest a velcro strap.

Rick

I am barley able to fit the 1.5 liter Smart water bottles in the main triangle of my frame with a slight mod to one cage. So no room there. I have a retro pump bracket and there is room between the fender and seat tube. I could probably make it work there but I want the longer version of the pump for more air volume. I can mount the pump on the outside of my Arkel bug pannier and the T54 has a pocket behind the air matress tube or I can put it in the tube. The Tubus Grand Expedition front rack is replacing the Tara. I am adding a couple of closed cell foam accordion style fold up sleeping pads to the kit. I ordered the rack and the tubus headlight mount plus two Schwalbe pickup tires from Germany. Even with the shipping cost being doubled since my last order in 2022 there was quite the savings.

bktourer1

I only have on pump and it's the Road Morph with gauge. Hasn't failed me yet

Rick

I have a Topeak Road Morph G and it takes to long to pump up my wide tires and gets very hot. It has seen better days so I am going to purchase the Silca Impero II. It is mostly all metal construction except for the silicone bumpers. I find the frame pump action less awkward than the road morph.

cyclomath

Well. you should have bought a Topeak Mountain Morph instead. The Road Morph is a great pump, but made for high pressure, not high volume tires.

Rick

The road morph was purchased in 2014 With the bike. The Silca Impero is a better replacement for it than another pump with infereier materials and less volume. i have a Silca track pump from the early 1990s. I believe after using it that there is Silca and everything else is inferior.

rekmeyata

Great idea! I haven't had to do that but I can see that doing that would work great.

rekmeyata

I disagree, just because something is more expensive doesn't make it better. There are lot of pumps on the market that would perform as well and last just as long.

Probably the most popular is the Topeak Joe Blow III for under $40, a lot of people use them and have done so for a very long time.

Another tough as nails pump is the SKS Rennkommpressor, wildly popular in Europe, this pump will easily last 50 years, and it cost less than $50.

I use to have a Silca Pista track pump, and now I have the Specialized Air Tool Comp, the Comp has better performance, and is more stable than the old Pista was.

There are all kinds of great pumps on the market these days, back in the 70s when I bought the Silca there wasn't near as many choice as today, but that Silca only lasted me 35 years, which is long time but it was expensive even back then. I knew people back then that used cheap pumps they got from Sears! Now with competition so heated in the cycling world you can find really nice pumps like the Lezyne Classic, and Bontrager Charger all make really nice pumps as well, but there are quite a few more than the ones I listed.

But I said all of that to say this, Silca over charges for everything they sell.

Rick

My Silca track pump was around $90.00 when i purchased it. The new owner of the Silca brand makes replacement parts in case I need them. I replaced the leather gasket and put the Hiro pump head on it. Nothing lasts forever but you can work on and replace worn parts on quality equipment. The Impero pump is high quality and the leather piston gasket and the high quality synthetic pump head gasket are not only easy to replace but will last much longer. As many other pumps heat up there ability to put a full stroke of air out Is compromised because the gaskets are made from cheap materials. The Silca Impero will keep a full stroke of air and work throughout its full range.

rekmeyata

So a Silca takes 3 to maybe 6 strokes less to put 100 psi in a 25c tire, but cost at least $400 more, hmmm, gee I can't decide which is the wiser buy.

Amazon.com : SILCA Super Pista Ultimate Floor Pump | Hiro Edition Chuck | 160psi Gauge | Braided Steel Hose | Rosewood Handle : Sports & Outdoors

Tourist in MSN

My go to pump at home (not carried on the bike) is a Joe Blow, not sure the vintage, have had it at least a decade. This is stored in the garage where most of my bikes are stored, it is handy to use before I go for a bike ride.

I also have and regularly use two older Silca floor pumps. Bought both in the 1980s, bought one new and the other one used. They get occasional use. I replaced the rubber seal in one of the Silca chucks a year ago. They get used often enough that I keep them maintained.

I prefer the Joe Blow pump over the Silca pumps. The older Silca (the one I bought used) is old enough that different air pressure units are used on the gauge so I have a hand written conversion table taped to it. I have no idea when Silca changed the gauge units, perhaps someone here knows when Europeans stopped using Kg/cm^2 and started using bars or PSI?



Since I never have to open up the Joe Blow to stretch the leather a bit to restore its ability to seal, I find that one much more convenient to use. The Silca pumps, the pump leathers often need a bit of stretching before I use the pump.

That said, I got the Joe Blow at a REI scratch and dent sale for pennies on the dollar, it was shipped from the factory with a O ring that was not seated correctly, took me maybe a half hour to find and fix that. But if I had not picked up the Joe Blow pump at that time, my go to pumps for home use would still be the Silca pumps.

Rick

Tourist in MSN: I bought a Joe Blow in Early March 2014 when I picked up my bicycle. I primarily use it for the bikes with the schrader valves. I recently replaced the leather piston in my 1990s Silca Super Pista. I used there leather conditioner on it prior to instal per there directions. If you haven't conditioned the leather recently, I would try that to see if you don't need to stretch the leather any longer. I also bought the Hiro pump head from Silca and It is a big improvement. In the past I have destroyed a couple of presta valves removing the chuck from the presta valve. The Hiro negates that possibility.

Tourist in MSN

Thanks. I usually use cooking oil on the leather. Years ago I had a can of Neatsfoot oil, but can't find it. And I am not going to buy a bottle for just a couple pump leathers. I have been using cooking oil on pump leathers for camping stoves for decades. I did buy a new pump leather, but right now I do not recall which Silca I put it in.

The Silca that I bought new had a screwy chuck, it was supposed to be useable on shraeder or presta by turning part of it around. It worked poorly on both. By pure luck, I got a used Silca presta-only chuck for cheap at a bike parts swap meet a year or two ago, that has improved the performance on one of my Silca pumps by replacing that shraeder thingy.

The presta-only chucks, my only bad luck was that the rubber fitting seemed to wear out really fast, I am hoping that the new ones use a better material that will extend the life on them.

Last night I used one of my Silcas to pump up a tire. I was working on one of my bikes just inside the front door on my condo, and one Silca pump is stored there for that sort of thing. It was faster than going out to the garage to get the Joe Blow.

Rick

Tourist in MSN: The replacement gaskets for the chucks,made by Silca are made from a high quality synthetic used elsewhere in industry. Silca says they will last more than 5 times longer than the original ones. The presta chuck that came on my Silca track pump has the shrader part underneath it. You just remove the presta chuck by unscrewing it from the hose and the lower piece screws onto the shrader valve. When I purchased the Hiro Side-Lever Locking Presta Chuck from Silca all I had to do was screw off the old head and screw in the new one.

Silca Gasket Info

canklecat

Fair enough. I should have mentioned my experience was biased by a serious shoulder injury in 2018 that took a year to fully heal (I was hit by a car in May 2018, with a broken support bone and grade 4 dislocation and winged scapula).

I found the Topeak's easier effort per stroke with more strokes suited me better than the more efficient Lezyne. I never pump any of my road bike tires above 80 psi, and usually prefer 55-70 psi with the 700x25 and 28 tires I now ride. Even when I rode 700x23 I weighed only 145-150 lbs and never worried about pinch flatting from riding at lower pressure. I don't think I've pumped a road bike tire to or above 100 psi since the 1970s.

Six years and lots of physical therapy later, I might now prefer the Lezyne or even an old school long tube Zefal type frame pump that I used back in the 1970s.

But the Topeak RaceRocket HP is the smallest practical pump I've tried that fits in a jersey pocket or even my baggy shorts pocket, yet still has enough oomph to pump a high pressure skinny road bike tire to at least 60 psi, enough to ride on until I get home.

rekmeyata

The Zefal frame pumps are great, BUT, those two plastic feet on one end are not made as durable as the feet use to be, mine broke after just 3 months of use, I still have an old Zefal from 40 years ago, and the feet never broke. Our stupid world, and somehow all this replacing of stuff we buy is good for the environment, am I missing something here???

I weigh 175 and use 25c tires, and depending on the tires I need 100 on the rear and 95 on the front with my Vittoria tires, but other bikes with the same size tires only need 90 read and 80 front. But even with that Lezyne Road Drive large, trying to out 100 psi in is a huge chore and a huge pain, and it's the best mini on the market! That Topeak I have won't let me get to 100, the most I can get it to is 90. Granted, I'm no Popeye!! Plus I'm 70 years old, and like you, my shoulders joints hurt from bicycle crashes over the years, when going to the higher pressures. But most mini pumps won't let you get to 80, which is better than they were just 15 years ago when all you get out of most was 65!

Tourist in MSN

When I was in my 20s and had a bike with tubular tires, tried to get over 100 PSI in them. That was before I realized that what really mattered was the suppleness of thr tire casing, not so much how high the pressure was (or looked at another way, how hard the road felt when you hit a bump).

I had a plastic frame fit Silca (still have it, have not used it in years), and one time when I got perturbed with how much trouble I had in getting much pressure, I calculated out the inside diameter of the pump tube, and from that calculated how many pounds of force I had to push my two hands together if there was no friction when you are pumping it that way, and was shocked to learn that there was no way I would ever be able to get the recommended pressure.

When I first saw the Lezyne and Toppeak pumps that had a foot rest, yet were small enough to carry on a bike, I knew that was the answer to life's problems.

My narrowest tire on any of my bikes is 28mm now, that still needs some good pressure, but since that rarely goes very far from home, I carry the Zefal HPX on it. I can ride that a short distance with less pressure. My rando bike, that as 32mm tires, also carry a Zefal frame fit pump on it, but when I ride a brevet I carry one of my pumps with a foot piece in the saddle bag.

Rick

I have used the old Silca plastic and Zefal frame pumps. I have a Road Morph but don't like being that low to pump with my foot on that little holder. I was going to get the new Silca Impero II but saw the Stompump. I will probably get it next month and deflate a tire or two and practice to get used to it. I don't need high pressure on my Pangea Rohloff. I have the Schwalbe 2" wide Marathon Supreme tires on it . I was running the rear at 50 psi or more when I noticed the Silca tire pressure calculator. Using the measured tire width of 47mm, I know run the rear at 41 psi. I have some Schwalbe 2.125 Pickup tires ordered and the pressure should be a bit lower on those. The Stompump has a 60 psi max rating and one reviewer stated that the difficulty Level increased after 40 psi.

Tourist in MSN

Please keep us informed.

My touring bikes, generally unladen run:
57mm wide tires, I run 45 psi in back, 35 in front.
50mm wide tires, 50 or 55 psi rear and 40 front.
35 - 40mm tires, 70 rear and 50 psi front.
etc.

Add a few more PSI if there is a heavy load on them. On really rough pavement, like West Texas chip seal, drop the front pressure more to reduce vibration on hands.

Shadco 

SILCA Tattico.




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