Lezyne Micro Floor Drive with Gauge

The Lezyne Micro Floor Drive HPG (with Gauge) is basically a miniature track pump that sits on your bottle bosses. It'll raise a 700x23 from zero to 120psi in just 158 strokes and three minutes while the gauge seems accurate to within three psi. But be careful of accidentally depressing the bleed valve when unscrewing the hose if you are using it with a Schrader valve.

Beautifully CNC machined, anodised aluminium, its 29.2cm profile means it's a bit of a beast on the bottle boss but coupled with oversized piston and 3mm thick stainless steel foot-peg delivers real world road and mountain bike pressures. The other secret to efficient inflation comes from a separate hose-it's a beefy, rubberised affair with integral pen gauge so you can tell pressure at a glance. Reversible flip-threaded presta/Schrader 'chuck' (Valve head to the rest of us) means you'll never be left in the lurch and can pass that kindness to a fellow rider down on their luck.

Experimentation suggests the micro will sit snugly inside other resin pump brackets but invest in some extra long bottle screws. Keep the Velcro tie nipped tight, otherwise the barrel can shuffle downwards. It's best mounted to the down, rather than seat tube.

Down to business and with a series of freshly mended tubes courtesy of Lezyne's classic patch kit, it wasn't long before we had tyres of all shapes and sizes back to optimum pressure.

Technique doesn't really matter and there's no need to use it track-pump stylee - doing so quickly results in nasty scratches around the base so I cupped ours in my palm and inflated as usual.

Sixty psi comes along mighty fast, irrespective of tyre size, so don't get distracted too long or you'll have 75 instead of 45psi inside the trailer tyre, calling for an urgent press of the bleed valve. We've had a 26x1.75 to 80psi in a matter of three hundred strokes, a 700x35 to 100psi in 182 (by which time the piston was close to locking out) and a 700x25 to a genuine 115 in 160.

The Micro Floor Drive has, what Lezyne have dubbed, ABS - and who doesn't love a techy acronym, this one stands for Air Bleed System (patent pending) and if you're using it with a Presta valve it means you can bleed the air backed up in the hose before you releasing the pump head. Lezyne claim benefit here is that it "removes the challenge of unthreading removable Presta valve cores after inflation" - that was'nt an operation I'd ever thought of in terms of 'challenge' before, but you live and learn. The other claimed advantage is that it helps prolong the life of the o-ring seal on the pump head, and we can definitely see the point of that. If you're inflating a tyre with a Schrader valve the ABS lets adjust the tyre pressure by letting air out of the tyre - useful with a full size track pump, but it sounds like doing things the hard way when using a mini pump with an accurate pressure guage to inflate a tyre even with a pump as pleasurable to use as this - hence my note at the top about taking care not to engage it accidentally.

Oh, I nearly forgot, clever little adaptors mean it also inflates balls and airbeds making it great for those rides to the beach; oh and there is also an HP version of the pump - without a guauge.

Verdict

Delightful to use and beautifully designed track style mini pump