Lezyne Digital Pressure Drive

The Lezyne Digital Pressure Drive is a compact and accurate pump for dialling your pressure. Unfortunately the head design risks removing your valve core, and getting past 80psi requires Herculean effort – so best suited for gravel or mountain bikes.

It's a pretty feature-rich pocket pump, with that integrated digital gauge letting you achieve accurate pressure, with readings in psi or bar.

The overall package looks and feels like quality with its anodised finish and CNC-machined metal parts. At 128g it's not exactly light, the gauge adding about 50g over the standard small 170mm Pressure Drive pump.

If you want to hang it off your bike there's a bottle-cage mount with a Velcro-and-metal-buckle strap that holds the pump solid.

Hose & head

The flexible hose to connect to your valve has a Presta head at one end and Schrader at the other. The Presta end features a button that can be used to remove pressure from the hose before unwinding from a valve after inflation – though I didn't really notice much difference removing the head, pressurised or not.

When inflating Schrader valves, the button can also be used to bleed air out if you've overshot the target. It's also possible to bleed a small amount during Presta inflation if you press it just a little bit.

The hose stores away nicely in the handle, and each end has its own little rubber plug cover. These are known to go missing, but fortunately a spares kit including all the rubber O-rings is available.

The Lezyne's head is threaded, unlike the Snap-It Apogee used by competitor Birzman which pulls straight off, so there's zero risk of unthreading a Presta valve core – a very real possibility with the Lezyne. To reduce the risk Lezyne has machined core-size notches into the sides of the Presta end of the hose, so you can tighten up your valve core before threading the hose on. I found the easiest way to get set up was to thread the hose onto the Presta valve body first, then attach the pump – you can't do this with Schrader valves as installing the hose head depresses the air release.

Gauge

Turning on the gauge and changing scale from psi to bar is with a press of the button, as is turning it off. If you forget, it auto-offs after three minutes.

If you think the gauge is reading off you can reset it by pressing and holding the button for 10 seconds – probably a good idea after major weather changes, flying, or going up or down a mountain, 1,000m equalling about 3psi difference.

I found the gauge accuracy to be within a few psi of my other digital gauges, so good enough for roadside use, and certainly much more accurate than the Mk I Human Thumb-O-Meter.

The replaceable CR1220 battery is accessed via a threaded cover with an O-ring to keep moisture out.

Pump action

Holding the pump body is easy enough, the gauge's bulk adding to grip. Eventually the metal hose end gets hot, so gloves might be more comfortable when seeking higher pressures.

On a pretty common 28mm 700C tyre it took 100 easy strokes to get to 40psi. Another 50 strokes got to 60psi, and the effort was getting noticeable. Getting to a fairly-typical 80psi took another 50 – so total 200 – and by now the effort required was pretty darn hard. I certainly wouldn't be wanting to go beyond 80psi, so the pump's rating of 120 must be for Olympic weightlifters.

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This leads me to think the Digital Pressure Drive is better-suited to mountain bike or gravel applications, and indeed Lezyne does a 160psi Digital Road Drive that's longer and narrower, thereby reducing the effort required to shift less air over a longer stroke.

Looking at mountain bike inflation, the most common use would probably be topping up a soft tyre. On a fairly common 2.8in 650B tyre, going from a squishy 16psi to 25 took 160 easy strokes. On a monster 3in 29er I went from 15 to 20psi in 90 strokes – again, all easily done, and the digital gauge made it easy to stop when required. While pumping away the gauge does dance about a few psi, but you always have a pretty good idea whereabouts you're at. Once you stop it settles within a few seconds.

Value and conclusion

As best I can tell Lezyne is the only firm making a digital-gauge pocket pump. Steve wasn't overly impressed with the cheaper analogue Crank Bros Sterling pump, finding it difficult to use and hard to get to pressure, though Shaun thought Topeak's Roadie DA With Gauge (now £34.99) worked well (read his review here).

I really liked (and still do) the Birzman Velocity Apogee, but the newer version no longer has the pressure gauge or Apogee head. The Infinite Apogee Road doesn't have a gauge but does have the Snap-It head, though Simon wasn't as impressed with it as I was.

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Overall, I like the Lezyne Digital Pressure Drive pump. It's easy to see where you are at mid-pump without stopping to check, and the CNC-machined and anodised hardware is very well done. Just be aware of the need to keep your valve cores tight, and that 80psi is about your limit.

Verdict

Good for hitting accurate pressures on your gravel or mountain bikes, but hard work for roadie pressures