I have talked about the Exped Air Pillow being my favourite piece of camping gear. Well, let me introduce to you my favourite piece of bike gear.
During my first year at the Tour de Timor, I spent a whole afternoon offering to pump up peoples tyres for them. Some would pull out a track pump they’d lugged from the other side of the world, but I’d smile and show them the Topeak Road Morph G pump.
Why was I so excited about pumping up other folks tyres?
Well, I was struggling to comprehend how quick and easy it was to pump tyres up to their recommended maximum pressures… so I had to do it over and over. The Road Morph G is so innocently small but is capable of pumping up tyres at roughly twice the time of an ordinary track pump.
If a track pump is 10 times its size, does that make the Road Morph five times awesomer?
Price: $69 AUD
Weight: 247g
Size (LxW): 35cm x 5.7cm x 2.8cm
Pros: Most powerful hand pump I’ve come across, pumps car or presta valves, easy to use pump head, accurate pressure gauge, gets to the pressure you require without fuss.
Cons: Weight and size could be considered a downfall to this pump.
The Topeak is a really well constructed and designed pump. The magic is in the footpeg, which drops down and allows you to out your body weight into the pump action – just like a floor pump. It uses a hose which means that you will no longer snap or damage your valves.
Once you’ve pushed the head of the pump onto the valve, you quickly lift a lever and the pump securely holds onto the valve until you lift the lever back up and release. The pump head is switchable between Presta and car valves, and replacement parts are available to ensure that the head gets a good grip on your valve.
The gauge seems to be very accurate, at least against my expensive track pumps gauge. The pump is said to go to 160psi, but most of the time I’m pumping between 25-100psi.
There are other options out there, but save yourself the trouble. My Topeak Road Morph has been going for a good five years now and doesn’t want to slow down. I cannot recommend a pump more highly than this beast.
And now that I have an Airspresso, I HAVE to use the pump every day to make our coffee. What a disaster… 😉
