When I got back into cycling, in 2015, my old bikes were mostly unrideable or safely in storage. My collection of bike tools was hopelessly outdated and incomplete, and I discovered that my only bike pump still was a single-port-and-lever-lock thingy from around 1994.
A thorough research across several product reviews and (local) bike shops later, I was a happy owner of a tiny red (!) Pressure Drive with a stowable, flexible hose and thread-on design for both, Presta and Schrader. Happy with its performance over the first year (and still today), I added a basic Lezyne floor pump to the mix. And I gave my parents a new floor pump from the same brand for Christmas that year.
With a huge pressure gauge (for readability) and the special Lezyne ABS-2 Chuck that pump was supposed to make my parents’ lives easier. I had experimented with the chuck design, and was quite pleased. No unscrewing and flipping around of the chuck if my parents wanted to inflate their bikes, one equipped with Schrader, the other with Presta valves.
But it turned out ot be a fiasco. My parents had trouble handling the slide-and-turn lock of the chuck. They even destroyed one Presta valve by bending the tiny closing screw on top.
Time(s) Of Change(s)
We switched floor pumps: I gave them my more basic model. That one used a “flip-chuck”. Presta on one, Schrader on the other side of the same thread-on chuck.
To make everything easier still, I changed both their bikes to Presta valves.
And I took the ABS-2 Chuck model home. The chuck was made of red (!) anodized aluminum and black plastic. It looked great. And it worked well. For a while.
Then, about 2+ years in and the pump outside of warranty, the slide-and-turn lock on the ABS-2 chuck started acting up. I had trouble establishing a secure seal. Or to fit it onto the valve at all!
The ABS-2 chuck is servicable, sort of. But when I took it apart for cleaning and some lubrication, all the bits and pieces didn’t inspire confidence. And it got worse, and I would spend more and more time trying to inflate my tyres to the desired pressure. I even went so far as to only use inner tubes of a specific type, as I suspected the valve cores of one of the brands.
Eventually, I avoided using that floor pump altogether. Instead, I switched to my Micro Floor Drive, another Lezyne model that I had orginally purchased for and successfullly used during the TPRNo1 race in 2019. That portable pump has an in-line pressure gauge and a thread-on flip chuck. By far not as comfortable as a true floor pump, yet it got the job done.
Reliability & Efficiency
But I was frustrated. I hate tools that, from their material quality, appearance and price suggest longevity and reliability under at least amateur conditions — only for their performance to deteriorate quickly, under relatively light use.
So, I set out to either repair the pump or find an alternative. And I didn’t want plastic.
Lezyne had retired their ABS-2 Chuck altogether. Instead they now used the angled ABS-1 Pro version. It certainly looked like a good solution, and it would have been reasonably priced. Alternatively, I could have adapted the hose on my floor pump to their ABS Flip Chuck which had served me well on the other pumps.
I was undecided. I wanted a secure seal, but I didn’t like the idea of screwing/threading a chuck onto the valves. For a floor pump that is destined to be used up to several times a week, there had to be a more practical, faster way.
Looking outside the Lezyne bubble and following recent reviews, very quickly, I was hooked on Silca pumps. But, oh, they are at another level. Especially price-wise.
Seeing Red
Browsing the Silca web page I discovered their “Hiro Locking Presta Chuck”. A short e-mail exchange with Silca support confirmed I should be able to attach it to my Lezyne pump hose. OK, for that, I’d also need the “Silca Thread-on Schrader Adapter”, but that accessory would also ensure future Schrader compatibility.
“Full metal construction, guaranteed for 25 years”. That should cover the weak points of the otherwise ingenious ABS-2 chuck. And I couldn’t get the nice red (!) dot on that locking lever out of my head.
I was reluctant though: The Presta chuck alone retails for at least the price of my original Lezyne floor pump (complete with ABS-2 chuck and adapters). Both Silca accessories (or spare parts, depending on where you’re coming from) combined to close to a hundred Euros.
Tipping Point
About 15.000 kms of cycling went by, after the ABS-2 chuck had started failing. Another six months passed since I first came up with the solution of “pimping my pump”. Then I could no longer endure the fumbling around on with chuck and valve before my rides. And testing colorful prototype tubes from an up-and-coming European brand didn’t help either.
I pulled the trigger on a good online deal.
The repair took only minutes. Hardest part was fitting the tight pressure hose over the thread-on adapter. (As you can see from the pictures: I could have done better. Yes. Impatience vs perfectionism. I’ll probably fix that one day.)
This surely was an expensive hack. In fact it’s anything but, and it works like a charm. And in terms of minutes saved (in comparison with the pre-pimping situation), at fractions of a normal hourly rate, I should easily break even within the 25-year warranty period …
Later, I’d discover that similar chucks are also available in form of the Kuwahara Hirame and KCNC Presta Head. But I never looked back.
What this illustrates is my frustration with unreliable pump heads, or “chucks” — sometimes flimsy, sometimes unwieldy assemblies or pieces of metal and/or plastic, I have been struggling with ever since I was confronted with inflating a (bicycle) tyre for the first time.
