Lezyne Compact Pumps

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Key Search Terms: Lezyne Air Drive pump; Lezyne Pressure Drive pump; Lezyne bicycle pump; Topeak Joe Blow Pro floor pump.

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Products: Lezyne Air Drive and Pressure Drive pumps, both in medium size. (Both also come in small; neither comes in large.) Length: Air Drive 9.3 in / 236 mm; Pressure Drive 8.5 in / 216 mm. Test Platform: 26 x 2.3 for the Air Drive and 700 x 23C for the Pressure Drive; both tube-type tires. Products Put in Service: Spring 2009. Reviewed by: Rich Ries. Cost: $24.99 MSRP Air Drive; $39.99 MSRP Pressure Drive. Weight/Mass: Air Drive - 4.4 oz / 123 g pump only; 4.8 oz / 136 g pump with water bottle bracket. Pressure Drive - 3.6 oz / 103 g pump only; 4.0 oz / 114 g pump with water bottle bracket. Max pressure: Air Drive, 90 psi / 6.2 bar. Pressure Drive, 120 psi / 8.3 bar. Recommended? Yes for both.

Executive Summary: Flatting sucks less when you have a good pump, and these are good pumps.

Ratings, Air Drive

(1 is lowest, 5 is highest)

Comments

Efficiency

A cut above average

Features

Standard stuff here

Ease of Use

Feels solid

Cost/Value

Lots of choices in this price range

Ratings, Pressure Drive

(1 is lowest, 5 is highest)

Comments

Efficiency

Excellent for a compact pump but no replacement for a frame pump

Features

The hose bumps up the rating

Ease of Use

Still takes muscle

Cost/Value

Again, lots of choices

Lezyne is working hard to carve out market share, and these two pumps will help establish their identity as makers of good-quality tools. Both are intelligently designed and work well for their intended purposes. Both include water bottle brackets that are lightweight, easy to use, and cling to their pumps like mothers cling to babies.

The Air Drive delivers high volume for mountain bike tires. It has the familiar presta/Schrader head that requires minor disassembly to switch from one valve type to the other. If all your bikes are all presta-valved it's no issue. But if you share one pump among multiple bikes with both styles of valves it could be a pain. A thumb lock holds the head firmly in place on the valve. The lathe-turned aluminum barrel is thick-walled enough to resist dings, which effectively kill a pump. (If the outside is dented, so is the inside and the plunger no longer operates correctly.) At just over an inch in diameter (27.0 mm) the barrel is comfortable to hold. But lots of pumps have similar features. What sets the Air Drive apart from them is its large plunger shaft and ample plunger-to-barrel overlap. The shaft is over a half-inch in diameter (1.45 mm). The Air Drive feels solid and secure in use with no wobbling of the plunger in the barrel. It's this solid feel that separates the Air Drive from other compact pumps.

The Pressure Drive seeks to solve a common problem: broken valves. In frustration and haste to fix a flat and get riding again many riders are overzealous with their pump strokes. The pump thrashes back and forth on the valve until a separation forms at the base of the valve where it attaches to the tube. That's it for that tube. The Pressure Drive's hose bears the brunt of this thrashing to prevent valve separation. The hose doesn't completely isolate the valve, but it damps the oscillations well enough that valve failure is virtually eliminated. Topeak's Morph series of pumps also have hoses. The Lezyne eclipses the Morph's engineering with a hose that stores inside the pump's barrel. Both ends of the pump are capped to keep out water and road gunk. It's a very sanitary design. The ends of the hose are labeled for presta or Schrader valves. The body of the pump is CNC-machined aluminum.

To test the pumps' efficiencies, we aired up a couple of tires first with the Lezyne pumps and then with our Topeak Joe Blow Pro (JBP) floor pump. We used a 26 x 2.3 with the Air Drive and a 700 x 23C with the Pressure Drive. Both were tube-type tires. Here are the results.

Pump

Pressure Achieved With 100 Strokes

Strokes With JBP To Achieve Same Pressure

Air Drive

20.0 psi

Pressure Drive

71.5 psi

We've used CO2 cartridges for several years. They're fast and convenient, but they're also bulky, heavy and noisy. We stop the clanging by sleeving the cylinders in cut-up sections of road tubes, but that just adds to the bulk. So we recently rummaged through our stash of old mini pumps. But we were eager to try something new. The Lezynes outperform anything we had sitting on the shelf. It still takes some muscle to top off a tire, especially a road tire, and we still hate flatting. But the Lezynes are well-designed, well-built, and efficient enough to make roadside or trailside repair a little less frustrating.

Photos

Both pumps come on retail hang cards.

Pressure drive on the left and Air Drive on the right.

The medium-size pumps are big enough to provide improved efficiency over mini pumps but small enough to be out of the way when mounted in their water bottle brackets or carried in a hydration pack.

Both pumps offer longer strokes than do smaller pumps. Note the rubber caps on both ends of the Pressure Drive. The Air Drive also has a cap to keep its head clean.

The ends of the Pressure Drive's hose are labeled for the type of valve they fit.