Saturday, October 10, 2020

If your bike has Presta Valves, a Vibrelli Bicycle Pump might be for you

 I have a bike with Presta valve tubes. This has meant that, in the past, if I wanted to inflate or re-inflate my tires I needed to either visit a place with a Presta equipped pump (havent seen one yet), use my trusty hand-held pump, or... actually that was it. I never had a Presta:Schrader adapter on hand, and this is my first Presta valve floor pump, so my only real option was to use my hand pump for all of my pumping needs.

That isn't necessarily that big of a deal for just topping off a tire once in a while, but unfortunately I was using 700c road tires to go all over the place on cycling trails and old streets, and I've had a LOT of punctures. I can recall 4 real punctures with thorns, glass or metal bits in my tubes, as well as 2 more slow leaks from no particular place on the tube and with no discernible issues from the tires.

I ended up throwing some money ($33 including taxes, a not insignificant sum) at the problem and impulse buying a pump off of Amazon a few weeks ago, and I'm pleasantly surprised with how it has performed for me. I picked out the Vibrelli Bike Floor Pump with Gauge, and as advertised it is actually a floor pump with a gauge. While the gauge goes up to 11 bar or 160 PSI, I've had it pumping my bike tires up to 50 PSI twice now with no issues and found that he gauge is pretty effective for identifying when your tires are full. I haven't calibrated the readings with a digital or a different analog pump, but from my subjective pinch test where I see how many additional fingers I need to use to be able to deform the sidewall of a fully inflated tire when I pinch it with my thumb and forefinger, I am able to consistently inflate to two additional fingers at 50 PSI, which was my target with my hand-held pump.

It's pretty easy to use. The cylinder is approximately 1 inch in diameter and 18-20 inches long, and it only takes me a couple of minutes of pumping to get up to recommended tire pressure on both of my 700c tires starting from new tubes. My pump also came with a needle to inflate sport balls and some kind of yellow plastic frustrum with tapered sides that I'm unsure how to use. It might just be a tool to deflate tires instead of poking a Schrader valve with a pencil and tapping on a presta valve tip.

Since I haven't thrown this thing in the car I can't say how sturdy it is under adverse conditions. I leave it in the corner of my living room next to my gear oil and it seems to be doing OK over there.

It comes with a few bike tube patches, but since I go through tubes like nobody's business, I don't think that I'm ever going to use them. The last time I tried patching a tube, I just ended up wasting my time and not getting to ride my bike for a few days while I was fiddling around with it.

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