13 September 2011 - 8:51A New Favorite Thing?

I know, you are asking yourself, how many favorite things could I possibly have? The answer is a few.

This little bit of equipment piqued my interest back at the Topeak/Ergon Base camp way back when. I asked Topeak supermodel Eddie O’Dea what his favorite floor pump device was, and he turned me onto the Joe Blow Mountian.

I had another brand floor pump that was sort of doing the trick, but it was wearing out. I tend to go through floor pumps quite a bit in the shop, they get a lot of use, and it seems I wear one out once a year. Sure, rebuild kits are available for some, but the pump just doesn’t work the same as new once you reach a certain point. Also, new stuff comes out, and we all know how much I like new stuff.

New stuff like this Joe Blow Mountain. Looks like a regular old floor pump from the picture doesn’t it? If you were to put it next to a regular old floor pump though, you would notice that the barrel of the pump is frickin huge! As the name suggests, the pump is made for inflating large volume mountainbike tires. Cool! I tested it out, and could get a tire/tube up to 35 psi in about 10 strokes. Very nice. Now here was an opportunity to see if what Eddie told me was true. Could I air up a Stan’s tire with it?

Turns out I can. In fact, every tire I have mounted since the beginning of last week has been with this pump. It takes about 12-15 strokes to get the beads of the tire to snap into the rim, which is really pretty light work. This is fantastic, as this will make last minute/emergency tire swaps so much more available when outside of the shop. I’ll keep one of these in the car for rides and races from now on. I even proved it works out in the field by Stanzing up a set of wheels outside of the Burke house last weekend. Winning!

At $45, the pump is not that expensive. Besides the huge amount of air it can put into a tire, it features an easy to read gauge that only goes up to 75psi. The gauge is pretty accurate ( I tested it agains the Topeak digital pressure gauge), and has more than enough headroom for big tires, MTN and CX alike. Also, it features the Twin Head which they have had on pumps for years. It’s my favorite way to put the pump on the valve, super easy and hassle free.

So there you have it. This is definitely one of my new favorite things.