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Over the last 9 years, we've bought and tested 30 of the best bike pumps. The top 12 appear in this review. We tested their stability, inflation speed, accuracy, gauge quality, and how easily they attach to a tire valve. We pumped a lot of tires, counting strokes and double-checking pressures with a separate digital gauge. We tried these pumps on Schrader and Presta valves, high-pressure road bike tires, and high-volume mountain bike rubber. A good pump makes it easy to build a habit of routine bike maintenance and pre-ride safety checks. They're also the unsung hero of a truly great ride, helping you nail the balance between friction and efficiency. Read on to find out which pump will get you out the door and riding away as smoothly as possible.
If you're in the market for a smaller pump to carry along on rides, check out our frame pump review. For all your other biking needs, check out our extensive hub of bike reviews. In the market for a new top bike helmet, a fresh mtb helmet, or new bike shorts? Our comprehensive reviews can help you find the best products to get out there on your favorite two-wheeled ride.
Editor's Note: This review was updated on October 18, 2022, with the addition of the Bontrager TLR Flash Charger pump.
Accurate and effective, the Specialized Air Tool Pro makes filling your tires to the perfect pressure easier than any other pump in the test. Its large handle, smooth pumping action, and broad base plate keep you fairly comfortable while you work. Its reasonably readable gauge is precise enough (marking every 2 PSI) to help you nail your numbers. A bleeder valve in the handle itself helps you dial everything in — adding a little, bleeding a little away — without leaving the helm. Specialized's SwitchHitter II nozzle also automatically adjusts to either a Schrader or Presta valve. Though many of the pumps featured similar technology, we found this chuck more seamless than the rest. It's efficient, too, inflating our road tires faster than all but one other pump in the test.
The Air Tool Pro is just okay at inflating mountain bike tires, it does well enough, it just takes a little longer. It's also heavy and not as stable as we'd like it to be. It can easily tip forward, away from the gauge. This is annoying, and it happens because the base plate doesn't extend very far toward you when you're pumping, pulling you in closer to the pump to hold it down and making things less comfortable than they could be. Still, the combination of fast high-pressure inflation, excellent nozzle attachment skills, accuracy, and a useful bleeder valve was enough to outscore the competition.
Man, we love this pump, the less-expensive underdog that beats out glitzier competition for its pure utility. The Bontrager Charger is one of the best in the test at actually inflating tires, which is the point of all of this. Its nozzle is smart, accommodating both Schrader and Presta valves without adjustment, it's stable, has a comfortable handle, and its gauge is bright, precise, and accurate. But most importantly, it fills tires quickly. It beat out every other pump we tested when inflating our test road bike tire from 40 to 80 PSI. It was also faster than any pump without a dedicated high-volume setting (we'll get into that below) in getting a mountain bike tire to 30 PSI.
Praise aside, that smart nozzle is more finicky than other similar options in this review. We struggled to get it to connect to valves more often, especially when the tire was flat and less of it was exposed above the rim. That said, with a little patience, the connection isn't that hard to make. That's a lot of positives and one rather important negative. If you can muster a little patience when your tire is totally flat, we think this pump is a great value.
Most of the pumps in this review do a pretty good job inflating high-pressure road tires. Only two really shine at high-volume mountain bike tires. This is the less expensive of the two. The Crankbrothers Sterling pump offers two modes: one that optimizes for pressure, and the other for volume. You can switch back and forth using a foot pedal at the base. The high volume option takes our mountain bike tires from 10 PSI to 30 faster than every pump but one that we tested. And it keeps the volume manageable enough that it's not hard to compress.
In high-pressure mode, this pump required more compressions to fill our road bike tire than any other pump tested. And we don't love its white and blue gauge that's harder to read. It's marked every 5 PSI, but those small tick marks are harder to see, and it's a pretty rough measurement anyway. In our accuracy tests, it performed well, but we checked for round numbers: 30, 40, and 80 PSI. This gauge would make it hard to hit something like 32. That said, if you want an affordable and accurate pump that fills up your fat tires fast, with a universal nozzle that easily attaches to Presta or Schrader valves, we recommend this one.
Tubeless tires require a sudden blast of air to seal the tire to the rim, or seat it. A noisy, corded air compressor will do the job, but so will the Bontrager TLR Flash Charger. Of the two compressive bike pumps we tested, the Flash Charger is our favorite. Both work well as manual compressors, though the Bontrager was more consistent in our tests, and as a regular bike pump. But the Bontrager consistently requires fewer reps to inflate road and mountain bike tires, and its universal chuck connects to both Schrader and Presta valves more quickly and consistently. The brightly lit digital dial is one of the easiest to read in the test. This pump also has a stable base, a very comfortable handle, and a smooth feel.
There are a few problems with this pump, though none are deal killers for us. The first is that the process required to use this pump as an air compressor is more complicated than we'd like. You need to remember to flip two levers on either side of the bike from vertical to horizontal, in the correct order. It's not hard, and the pump comes with a fairly easy-to-follow instruction sheet. It's just easy to mess up, especially in the beginning. And the clip meant to hold the chuck and wrangle the hose doesn't work at all, meaning that the hose is free range. The gauge is also not perfectly accurate at higher pressures. It tends to overestimate them. We recommend double-checking your road bike tires with a separate gauge. But for quick and seamless inflation and consistent tire seating, we recommend this pump.
The Bontrager TLR Flash Charger impressed us with its bright digital gauge, comfortable handle, and excellent ability to inflate high and low-pressure tires and seat tubeless ones.
If you want to fill up mountain bike tires as fast as possible, reach for the Topeak JoeBlow Sport 2Stage. It takes just eight strokes to bring a fat tire from 10 to 30 PSI. That's 100 to 375% fewer strokes than it takes the competition. Only one other pump comes close to that efficiency with double the compressions. The 2Stage accomplishes this feat by providing two inflation modes, which it calls Stage 1 for high volume and Stage 2 for high pressure. It works much like the other two-stage model we tested, but the barrel is much bigger, so it fills the tires much faster.
This also makes the pump harder to compress, and it's tall, which can be a challenge for shorter riders. The high-pressure mode is less effective but only takes three more compressions than the fastest inflating pump. What is kind of a bummer is the gauge design. The first half of the gauge covers only 30 PSI, marking every pound of pressure. The second half runs from 30 to 160 PSI, only marking every 5 PSI. And those marks are very close together. It's not surprising that the gauge is very inaccurate above 30 PSI since it's hard to tell what the needle is pointing to. The double-sided gauge is also finicky with flat tires. If you can live with all that to get the efficiency this pump offers, we say go for it.
The hose on the Sport 2Stage is flexible and mostly well-conceived. It provides a holder for the needle and cone adapters as well.
Credit: Clark Tate
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We extensively tested each pump based on our key performance metrics.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman
Why You Should Trust Us
Our head tester for this review is Clark Tate. Clark is a mountain biker and fair-weather bike commuter who's been lucky enough to land in four singletrack meccas — Grand Junction and Durango, Colorado, and Santa Cruz and Lake Tahoe, California. She ran GearLab's mountain bike program for a while, is currently getting used to New England's rocks and roots, and is considering turning to fat biking this winter. Clark also has a scientific background and, with a systematic and scientifically-trained mind, rigorous gear testing is a no-brainer.
Our floor pump tests involved, as one might expect, a whole lot of inflating. We tested for quantifiable factors like inflation speed and gauge accuracy, measured weight and dimensions, and made user-based assessments of more subjective things like handle comfort and overall construction quality. We also asked friends and fellow bicycle enthusiasts to join in our testing rounds to balance our experts' perspectives on the best features for all experience levels.
We round them up for the showdown.
John's glad this pack has good organization for all those bike tools and pump while fixing a flat.
We take notes during the entire testing process.
Analysis and Test Results
Since we are sticklers for a good ride, we pump our tires to perfection almost every time we hit the road (or trail). We look for a simple, secure connection to the valve, a stable platform, and easy pumping. We also want an accurate gauge — which is not as simple as it sounds — when we take off on our ride. We want to know that our tires are inflated correctly.
To find the best pump for every user, we focused on what we think are the five most important attributes of a high-quality bike pump — how easy it is to attach to a tire, whether or not you can easily read the gauge, stability, inflation speed, and accuracy.
Value
One of our primary goals during testing is to decide if a product's performance is worth its price tag. We also seek out products that will last because we know how satisfying it is to save money while investing in products that will do their job for a long time to come.
We tested some options that provide excellent performance at a stellar price point. For example, we're blown away by the Bontrager Charger, which earns the second-highest score with one of the lowest price tags in the test. It works best with high-pressure road tires, though. So we also highlighted the Crankbrothers Sterling, which does a better job of inflating high-volume fat tires than all but one other, higher-priced option.
If you want a high-quality road bike pump with excellent accuracy and the type of good looks and well-considered construction that makes it a joy to use, check out the Lezyne Sport Drive. We feel like it will serve you well for a good long while, and it's one of the less expensive options in the review.
We look for the highest performers and then we check the price tags to help you find the best deals. The Crankbrothers pump here is a less expensive option that's optimized for high volume mountain bike tires.
Credit: Clark Tate
Ease of Attachment
Several pumps we tested this round have some version of a universal gauge that automatically adjusts to accommodate either a Presta or a Schrader valve. We love this concept. It lets you all but forget to look at which type of gauge your tire has. That said, not all of them worked equally well.
The Specialized Air Tool Pro, Bontrager TLR Flash Charger, and AerGun X-1000 were the best examples of automatically adjusting gauges. All three worked seamlessly without making us finesse the connection, even when our tires were especially low, though the Flash Charger could be hard to remove.
The Topeak JoeBlow Booster also offers this style of auto-adjust nozzle. It's more finicky than the top three examples but only really gave us trouble when our tires were flat. The version on the Bontrager Charger doesn't work nearly as well and is the pump's one big weak point.
The Specialized SwitchHitter II nozzle was the best auto-adjuting option we tested. It switches more easily from Presta to Schrader valves than most.
Credit: Clark Tate
The Lezyne Sport Drive gives us another stellar nozzle option. This one screws on, offering impeccable security once you've got it in place. It really shines when your tires are totally dead. Traditional, press-on nozzles can shove the valve back into the rim as you try to attach them. This style barely needs any real estate to make a solid connection and never shoves the valve down. It does take more time, and you have to unscrew the bright red chuck and flip it over to switch between Schrader and Presta valves, but we like the secure connection.
The Lezyne chuck screws onto your tire's Presta or Schrader valve for a very secure connection.
Credit: Clark Tate
The rest of the pumps offered double-headed nozzles: one side working with Schrader valves, the other with Presta and sometimes Dunlop. Of these, the Topeak JoeBlow Sport 2Stage works the best, with the Sport III and Max HP getting a bit trickier by degrees.
The double-head chuck of the 2Stage accepts Schrader valves (using the black side on the right) and Dunlap and Presta valves (gray side on the left).
Credit: Clark Tate
The Vibrelli chuck didn't work very well at all, and the SKS Rennkompressor has a longer nozzle face with a Schrader and a Presta opening stacked on top of one another. It's hard to line up and often challenging to seat correctly.
The old-school head of the Rennkompressor has an attachment point for both Presta and Schrader valves on the same side. It's hard to line the up correctly to get a good connection.
Credit: Clark Tate
Though some of these pumps have shorter hoses, most notably the Vibrelli, AerGun, Specialized, and Crankbrothers, we never ran into a situation where they needed to be longer.
The AerGun X-1000 stole the show with its remarkably simple and effective pump head.
Credit: Lyra Pierotti
Inflation
To test inflation speed, we counted the number of compressions it took each pump to inflate a mountain bike tire from 10 to 30 PSI and to take a road tire from 40 to 80 PSI. We also considered subjective factors, like how stable they were and how hard they were to pump.
There was less variation when we tested inflation on high-pressure road bike tires, and there was a much larger spread when inflating high-volume mountain bike tires. Of all the pumps, we were most impressed by the inflation speed of the Topeak JoeBlow Sport 2Stage. It took just eight strokes on average to get a fat tire up to 30 PSI. The next best high-volume performer, the Crankbrothers Sterling, needed twice that amount, though the 2Stage is harder to pump. It has so much volume and height that it is physically more difficult to compress. You work for that speed.
Credit: Clark Tate
The 2Stage also fared reasonably well in the high-pressure test, where the Sterling flagged. Both of these pumps offer two modes, one optimized to provide more volume and the other to provide more pressure. Simply flip a foot pedal on the Sterling or turn a knob on the 2Stage to flip back and forth.
The Topeak 2Stage pump gives you the option of setting it to Stage 1 for high volume or Stage 2 for high pressure.
The Crankbrothers Sterling pump has a high volume and a high pressure mode. Just flip the pedal up or down to optimize your inflation.
The rest of the pumps were competing for top high-pressure inflation honors. Those go to the Bontrager Charger, Bontrager TLR Flash Charger, and Specialized Air Tool. They are all among the best of the non-adjustable options for inflating high-volume tires. They offer similar, comfortable stances and handles that are smooth and easy to use. Any of these pumps would be an excellent all-around option.
From mountain bike to road tires, from Presta to Schrader valves, the Air Tool Pro is ready to go.
Credit: Clark Tate
The Topeak JoeBlow Sport II and AerGun X-1000 are both good pumps, offering decent inflation rates for either road or mountain bike tires. The Lezyne Sport Drive and Topeak JoeBlow Max HP are high-pressure specialists, so we think a more dedicated road cyclist would appreciate them most. They will certainly still serve if you're a trail rider, though.
The Sport III is a simple and reliable pump that any rider can appreciate.
Credit: Clark Tate
When used as a regular pump, the Topeak JoeBlow Booster also performs best with high-pressure road tires. Both the JoeBlow Booster and the Bontrager TLR Flash Charger also serve as manual air compressors to install tubeless tires, using a big burst of air to set the bead of the tire against the rim of the wheel. Both work wonderfully. During our tests, we've used them to install 29-inch, 27.5-inch, plus, and fat tubeless tires. Both pumps usually seat the tire's bead on the first go. If they don't, try gently pressing the tire toward the rim to force the bead toward the edges of the rim. And make sure your tire is off the ground.
Working a tire change with the impressive JoeBlow Booster.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman
Of the two, the Booster is more straightforward to use. You just have to rotate the rim of its dial between clearly marked charge and inflate marks. Its gauge was also more accurate in our tests. Though you have to switch two levers on the Flash Charger in the right order, the blast of air seemed more powerful and the pump inflates tires more quickly as a regular pump, which is how you'll likely be using it most of the time.
The JoeBlow Booster is more straightforward to use but the Flash Charger inflates tires faster and works just as well when seating tubeless tires.
Credit: Clark Tate
Stability
Inflating a bike tire can feel like a high-intensity interval workout. Our field tests sometimes looked like a CrossFit class with our testers side-by-side, furiously inflating away. A good bike pump needs a base at least as strong as you are to hold up to the force of your pumping. Pump bases can take a beating. You need a sturdy one.
Pumps with well-balanced tripod bases are among our favorites, like the Bontrager's Charger and TLR Flash Charger, Crankbrothers Sterling, and Lezyne Sport Drive. These all stand upright when you step away and will deal with a few knocks. We also like that two of the base's legs tilt toward you, letting you stand further from the pump while securing it. The Specialized Air Tool has a similar base, but the front legs trend more to the side than the front, making it easy to knock over in that direction.
The Bontrager's large metal tripod base is very sturdy and comfortable to use.
Credit: Clark Tate
The benefits of tripod-style bases are especially apparent when pumping outdoors on less-than-level surfaces. Unstable pumps topple over easily when you're pumping on a grassy hillside covered in sticks and leaves.
The three-pronged Lezyne with a 3.5-inch gauge is quite stable.
Credit: Clark Tate
Pumps with bases that extend out to either side are less dependable. If the wings are large and broad enough, the pump can still be quite reliable on flat ground. Often though, they tip forward or backward with little provocation. The behemoth JoeBlow Booster is an example of a fairly stable, non-tripod pump. We've definitely knocked it over a few times though.
It's tall and heavy, with a large steel base that provides a solid foundation, measuring 10 inches across and about 4.5 inches front to back. There's no rubber or plastic protection under the metal base plate, so be careful when using this hefty pump on delicate surfaces.
The winged base of the Booster is weighty steel and broad enough to be very stable, even on a lawn.
Credit: Clark Tate
The Topeak JoeBlow Sport III and Sport 2Stage feature smaller versions of this baseplate. They're oriented left to right with enough depth to create some front-to-back stability. You have to be a bit more careful around them. The Max HP and Vibrelli Performance are less stable still, and fall over with little provocation.
The base of the Sport III provides a lot of lateral stability but not much front to back. It's tall, with a high gauge, and it tips over easily.
Credit: Clark Tate
The SKS Rennkompressor prioritizes size over stability. It has foldable feet and an easily removable handle for travel. Those features make it challenging to use since it often falls over whenever you step away from it, even just to attach its nozzle to a tire. If you want your pump to last, go for a wide and hefty base plate with a gauge mounted low enough to hold extra weight low to the ground.
Accuracy
To test the accuracy of these pumps, we cross-referenced their pressure readings with an independent gauge (a Jaco dial version, proven to be highly accurate in our gauge test). We checked readings throughout the testing period and ran a dedicated accuracy test, pumping mountain bike tires to 30 PSI and road bike tires to 40 and 80 PSI. All the pumps get you in the ballpark, but some will require more tweaking than others if you're particular about your pressures.
The most accurate pump in this review is the Lezyne Sport Drive. It nailed the higher pressures in the test but overestimated the 30 PSI test by 2 pounds. Since it's meant for road tires, that's not a huge deal-breaker for us. The Specialized Air Tool Pro landed in second place, nailing the lower pressures but undershooting the 80 PSI mark by 2 pounds as well.
The Specialized Air Tool Pro was the most accurate gauge we tested, and, if you overshoot your target pressure, just press the button in the middle of the handle to bleed some out.
Credit: Clark Tate
The AerGun X-100, Crankbrothers Sterling, and Bontrager Charger are all similarly accurate. Though the AerGun struggles more with the lower pressures (under by about 3 PSI) and the Bontrager with the higher ones (under by around 4). The Sterling struggled with the middle-of-the-road 40 PSI mark, oddly. The Joeblow Booster is a bit worse, over by a few pounds at both lower two pressure points, but nailing the 80 PSI marker.
The Charger was very accurate in our lower pressure tests (at 30 and 40 PSI), and only lost a couple of pounds in our 80 PSI road bike test.
Credit: Clark Tate
The Topeak JoeBlow Sport III and Max HP were about 5 pounds under at higher pressures. The Bontrager TRL Flash Charger was over by that amount at high pressures but nailed pressures around 30 psi on a mountain bike tire.
The Max HP wasn't great at low pressures either. From there, it just went downhill. The SKS and Vibrelli were unimpressive. We gotta say, though, the Topeak JoeBlow Sport 2Stage really disappointed us, holding it back in the scores. Its higher pressure readings (over 30 PSI) were just way off, probably because the second half of the gauge is hard to read(more on that below).
We appreciate that the gauge of the JoeBlow Max MP has a sliding yellow marker and that it prints its PSI readings outside the glass.
Credit: Clark Tate
Gauge
Pumping up a bike tire can be a workout. With sweat stinging your eyes, it's no fun to bend over and squint to check the gauge. Height, color combination, print size, construction, and intervals are all important factors that can differentiate between a good gauge and a bad one.
We really like the Bontrager TRL Flash Charger and Topeak JoeBlow Booster gauges. Both are large, clear, and located at the top of the pump, making them very easy to read. The Flash Charger's gauge is digital, making it very precise and easy to read in the dark, but completely useless if you run out of batteries.
The JoeBlow Booster's analog gauge is marked at intervals of 5 PSI, which is less precise than we'd like, but pretty typical. It also has a sliding yellow marker to keep track of your desired pressure, as do the other Topeak options and the Aergun. It's a handy detail.
The Topeak JoeBlow Booster gauge.
The Specialized Air Tool Pro gauge.
The Bontrager Charger gauge.
The Crankbrothers Sterling gauge.
The Lezyne Sport Drive gauge.
The Topeak JoeBlow Sport 2Stage guage.
The Topeak JoeBlow Sport III gauge.
The Topeak JoeBlow Max HP gauge.
The Vibrelli Performance gauge.
The AerGun X-1000 gauge.
The SKS Rennkompressor gauge.
The Specialized Air Tool Pro gauge is big and marked at every 2 PSI with thin tick marks and at every 20 in large numbers. The Vibrelli and the Bontrager Charger also mark every 2 PSI. Of these, the Charger is another easy one to read. It's simple and bright white with large-ish black letters. The Vibrelli is smaller, packs its tick marks closer together, and tucks its numbers under the curve of the rim. Because of this, it doesn't score well.
The Booster gauge is great because it's at the top of the pump where you can clearly see it.
The bright digital gauge sure is easy to read and precise, reading out your psi to the nearest decimal place.
The other Topeak pumps all read out at 5 PSI increments, as do the Lezyne and Crankbrother gauges. The JoeBlow Sport III is the best of this bunch, with a large gauge and PSI numbers printed clearly around the outside of the rim, free of the glare of the glass. The Max HP is a little smaller, the Lezyne Sport darker with smaller numbers, and the Crankbrothers has smaller numbers and an eye-tiring blue and white color scheme.
The JoeBlow Sport III's large and easy-to-read gauge, complete with a bright yellow adjustable guide to mark your goal pressure.
Credit: Lyra Pierotti
Look for large gauges that are bright and clearly marked, with enough resolution to get the precision and accuracy you need.
Conclusion
While conceptually simple, bike pumps vary greatly in their capacities and capabilities. How easy and pleasant they are to use and their efficiency and accuracy vary greatly. We hope our side-by-side testing methods and comparison help you sort through the details. With any luck, this review will help you find the best bike floor pump for your pedaling needs without bankrupting your new bike fund.
We like a lot of these pumps, but they're all good at different things. Make sure you find the right one for you.
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GearLab is founded on the principle of honest, objective, reviews. Our experts test thousands of products each year using thoughtful test plans that bring out key performance differences between competing products. And, to assure complete independence, we buy all the products we test ourselves. No cherry-picked units sent by manufacturers. No sponsored content. No ads. Just real, honest, side-by-side testing and comparison.
