Track pump

What a great little pump this Birzman Zacoo Tiny Tanker is. Birzman have been busy over the last couple of years making some really nice kit for your shed and the Tiny Tanker is one of their best offerings yet.

Tiny? Well, smaller than a normal floor pump. It measures 51cm high and the single foot means its footprint is very small; it's easy to tuck away in the garage or the boot of a car. The idea is that you get floor-pump performance with a bit more portability.

SKS make the bike-shop-stalwart Rennkompressor pump and a bunch of other high quality units, and they've trickled down some of that engineering into the new Airkompressor 12.0 - enough of it for the pump to be a very good buy for the £30 list price, and you can have it for less if you shop around.

The Profil Mini Trackpump RG01 is small enough to carry on your bike and has enough punch to get your tyres back up to full pressure – rather than 'get me home' pressure – if you have to fix a flat.

I must say, though, that I think calling this a trackpump is pushing it. It's more of a frame-mounted pump with a stabilising foot.

Zefal's FP50 Profil Max Track Pump is a tough piece of kit that's fast, effective and accurate.

Weighing 1775g, there's a distinctly old school flavour that runs much deeper than the tough red/black livery. It comprises a steel barrel and base, which don't make it light, but there's a dual compound composite handle and super smooth piston that's a joy to use.

As track pumps go, the Canyon Elite is on the big side, with a thick teardrop-shaped shaft, a heavy-duty-footplate, nice long hose, and a chunky soft-grip handle. But what really marks it out from other pumps is the electronic digital gauge. So when pumping up your tyres, instead of looking at a needle going round a dial, you look at LED digits on a little screen.

Does the pump work? Yes. Is the electronic gauge necessary? I'm not convinced.

The nice people at Birzman say the designs of their bike tools are inspired by nature. Hence, according to their website, the Zacoo Next floor pump design “originates from the Birzman premier 5 degree floor pump” which itself originates from “the trunk of a tree … a true vertical expression of strength and stability.”

Birzman Zacoo 5 track pump - dial

Birzman Zacoo 5 track pump