Why is ZFC testing mini pumps?
Fun little side project of personal interest. This product category has really taken off, with so many options now – and from premium brands, cheap brands and knock-offs. There is likely to be a large performance and reliability / lifespan difference between top pumps and ooooh that’s concerning pumps. Also if you are shelling out the big bucks for a premium pump, you may want to know how well X pump stacks up versus its key competitors.
From an environment standpoint (replacing use of disposable Co2 canisters) – really the pumps need to have a good lifespan. They take significantly more resources to manufacture, package and ship around the world vs canisters, and due to batteries also carry and improper disposal risk. It is possible that especially for the cheaper and knock off units that we may see some concerns here, but also potentially some pleasant surprises. It will be good know if there is an impressive pump that can be had for not so much $$, as well as knowing what pumps are pretty much the equivalent of manufacturing and shipping landfill around the world.
What is value add of this testing vs Cycling publication reviews?
Already it is clear that cross comparing pump reviews and performance from different cycling media reviews is very difficult. Most Cycling media reviewing mini pumps will only be able to do so for around 5 pumps. So X pump you are looking at may rank well in a particular review, but it was not reviewed by another media review containing some other pumps you were also considering. It can be very difficult to cross correlate these different reviews to see where the one in X media review would have faired vs other pumps in Y media review. As the number of pumps is large, media reviews can have their own testing protocols and views, we really do not have a proper benchmark overall for pump performance.
The ZFC testing will build a large league table, with testing covering pretty much all objective performance measures for the mini pumps. This will not only be of use for cyclists looking to properly compare one pumps performance and value vs another, but as it builds it should also be a very handy reference for cycling media doing pump reviews as well.
How do I use your testing and data?
Despite the on the surface simple nature of the product and testing – when we go deep on anything really, there can be a fair bit of data. To get the best out of all the groovy information available here, it for sure can help to;
- Read the information on how the pumps are tested
- For the data table – below the table the ratings scale for all scored performance categories can be found if you wish to know, as well as information explainer for all columns where this may be helpful.
- Highly recommend to check out the “Key Learnings” which sits below “Data Graphs – Micro” page – we have already learned a lot about use and performance of electric mini pumps and this information is likely to be very handy for users or those considering purchasing.
- As best I can new pumps in for testing I will try to pump out a video (excuse pun) covering unboxing, first look and first performance benchmark, and then when a pump has been killed by test cycles, a full End Of Life (EOL) review is done – again covering its outright performance, its performance degradation over test cycles, how long it lasted, failure mode, and tear down so we can have a look inside and see if we learn anything interesing about the pump from there. I will also be looking to add packability etc to the first look and and EOL reviews as even in the smallest category (under 150grams) there can be a notable size difference between the biggest and smallest in this category.
- You can really help ZFC in this side project by subscribing to the Zero Friction Cycling youtube channel, liking, sharing, engaging etc on the video’s. ZFC is very small so purchasing a lot of pumps does use up a lot of spare ZFC bucks from core business as we don’t generate a lot of spare bucks. The more help we get, the more pumps and more quickly I can build the league table!
