1 / SKS AIRSTEP / $80
Your legs are strong
from all that cycling;
put them to work with
this foot pump. A 100
psi gauge offers good
resolution and a usable
range for wider tires.COOL AIR
TOOLS
2 / FABRIC
ACCUBAR / $53
Attach this 40psi
gauge to your favor-
ite high-pressure
floor pump for more
precise inflation at
lower pressures.3 / SILCA VIAGGIO
TRAVEL PUMP / $275
Collapses for easy
storage. Accurate
and easy to read
pressure, thanks
to the free iGauge
companion app. Smart people like Jan Heine at René
Herse Cycles and Josh Poertner of Silca
(formerly of Zipp)—to name only two—
have spent hundreds of hours trying to
discover the secrets of tire pressure, spe-
cifically how it affects rolling resistance.
Thanks to their efforts (and the efforts
of others), it’s now generally accepted that
moderate pressures—well under a tire’s
maximum-pressure rating—provide the
best performance in real-world conditions.
During this pressure research, a move-
ment toward wider tires was happening
as well. These two things were somewhat
related, as the research was showing that a
wider tire at lower pressure is often more
efficient—and more comfortable—than a
narrower tire.
Mix in tubeless, the adoption of disc
brakes, gravel riding, and the fat- and
plus-tire movements in the mountain
bike categories and almost everything
around tire width and tire pressure has
changed, particularly a big shift toward
lower pressures.
If you haven’t tried lower pressures, you
should. It’s free, it’s easy, and it makes a
big difference.
On a modern road bike, if you’re using
more than 100 psi, you’re almost certainly
using too much pressure—even if you’re
riding “skinny” 25mm tires.
I (unfortunately) weigh about 180
pounds these days, and I use less than 80
psi with 25mm tires and tubes. With a 35
to 40mm tubeless tire, I’m down in the
30 to 40psi range. On a mountain bike, I
typically use about 18 psi in the front and
25 in the rear.
Unfortunately, f loor-pump pressure
gauges have not caught up to the low-psi
movement.
High-pressure gauges are hard to read.
The resolution sucks because all the num-
bers are crammed together. I’d love it if
most analog gauges maxxed out at 120
psi, but after a seriously nerdy and almost
two-hour-long conversation about pump
pressure gauges with Silca’s Poertner, I
learned that making an accurate and reli-
able tire-pressure gauge for a bicycle pump
is far more complex than I imagined.
The two largest obstacles in the way of
my dream 120psi gauge are accuracy and
space. A pressure gauge is most accurate in
the middle of its range, and it needs some
overrun space (room for the needle to
sweep during the pump stroke) to prevent
damage to the sensitive mechanism. There
are solutions for both, but the resulting
gauge would be cost-prohibitive.
Digital gauges are probably the best
solution for now. I’m not happy about it,
because I think analog gauges are more
elegant, plus they don’t require batteries.
On the other hand, a digital gauge sup-
ports a wide pressure range and is as easyto read at 9 psi as it is at 120psi.
It’s not the end of the analog gauge,
though. In my research for this story, I
learned that there are some products on
the horizon that will have something close
to my ideal analog gauge. And as more
riders get on the low(er)-pressure train, the
call for better gauges will only get louder.
Look, f loor-pump makers, go ahead and
continue making specific pumps with
high-pressure gauges and teeny barrels
for track racers. The rest of us just need
a pump that moves air quickly and has a
readable gauge that lets us get the most
out of our tires.28 BICYCLING.COM • ISSUE 5