Lezyne Steel Travel Floor Drive

Like many cyclists, my Sunday mornings usually involve packing the car in the pre-dawn chill en route to the far corners of the country for some race or other. I'd dearly like a van but I have to make do with a 10-year-old Corsa packed to the gunnels with bike, spare wheels, tools and enough food to survive a minor environmental disaster. Space, it goes without saying, is at a premium, and this is where the Lezyne Travel Floor Drive comes in.

It's like a normal floor pump, only smaller and it can be laid flat. As with all of Lezyne's tools, the build quality is top notch, making for a smooth action. The wooden handle sits nicely in the hands and adds a touch of class to the whole ensemble.

The pump head is Lezyne's ABS equipped 'Flip-Thread Chuck' which you screw onto the valve stem itself, guaranteeing a secure seal. The ABS bit refers to a small button which releases the pump hose pressure when you want to unscrew the head from the valve. This makes it less likely that you'll accidentally end up unscrewing your presta removable valve core or valve extender – a common complaint with the previous non-ABS quipped pump head. Whilst it's certainly more fiddly and time consuming to use than the more common push-on style pump head, it's also much more secure – there's no chance of the whole thing blowing off at high pressures. Reversing the pump head makes the pump Schrader-compatible too so you aren't just limited to road tubes.

The pressure gauge is a neat analogue affair which reacts nicely to each individual pump without any decay between strokes. Although I can't confirm its accuracy, it has remained consistent throughout the test period which is what matters anyway. The quoted max pressure of 160 psi is attainable although you're going to have to work for it once you get over 120 psi. Dedicated trackies might want to look at something more substantial such as the Floor Drive range. For more standard road pressures though, the Travel Drive works just fine with a fairly linear pressure increase of 3 psi per full stroke.

Although you definitely give away some stroke volume to bigger pumps, I can't really say that it made much difference in use. At a push, I managed to get some tubeless mountain bike tyres to seat using the Travel Floor Drive provided I prepped the tyre nicely beforehand.

So what (if any) are the concessions made to produce such a small form?

First of all: height. Be prepared to have to bend over slightly more than usual, so if you've got a dodgy back, it's probably best to leave this one alone.

Coupled with this is the short hose length of the Travel Drive. The hose itself screws into the handle via the pump head which makes for a clean looking unit but means that the hose is only as long as the pump. In use, your valves need to be at the bottom of the wheel as any rotation past 30 degrees of bottom centre is simply unreachable. And that's with the bike on the ground - forget about pumping up tyres with the bike on a workstand. Although it might seem like a minor inconvenience, this is perhaps the greatest reason to question its use as an everyday pump.

Speaking of the hose, I found the process of threading it into the handle somewhat fiddly as the hose was only just long enough to reach. A minor annoyance, but something you'd expect to be a bit slicker on a pump at this price.

You only get one footrest as the gauge takes up space on the other side of the pump, but stability was never really an issue.

Onto the question of value now. Whilst the quality of construction is undeniable, the fact of the matter remains that £45 is an awful lot to spend on a pump that will only be used for a couple of minutes on a Sunday morning. At a push, you could get away with using it as an everyday pump in which case the price tag becomes more justifiable.

Verdict

Compact pump for a quick pre-ride tyre check but stashability has drawbacks.