The Crankbrothers Gem Floor Pump is a conventional track pump that offers both high volume for mountain bike tyres as well as high pressure for skinny gravel or road bike tyres. At a shade under £40, its pretty good value too.
The Gem floor pump is the cheapest track pump that Crankbothers make, at £39.99, it’s £20 cheaper than the Sterling floor pump which has an alloy base rather than a steel one as the Gem does. The three-pronged base is pretty stable and the rest of the Gem is either alloy for the main shaft or plastic for the handle and gauge.
The Gem is good for 160psi (11 bar) and has a ‘smart head’ that is ready for either a Presta or a Schrader valve without having to unscrew or swap any parts around.
The pump features a foot operated lever to swap the pump from high volume to high pressure, a handy feature if you have both fat and skinny tyre in your garage or regularly use an Airshot for inflating tubeless tyres. In the high volume mode the pump does a decent job of filling mountain bike tyres with air quickly. It’s not quite as voluminous as the Lezyne Alloy Overdrive pump I reviewed recently but that pump is £30 more expensive and also won’t pump up anything over 60PSI, so no good for your road bike or that Airshot.
In the high-pressure mode, the Gem will happily and easily fill your road tyres, an Airshot or finish off pumping mountain bike or knobbly gravel tyres at higher pressure.
The gauge is easy to read and is conveniently placed about a third of the way up the pump shaft to make the small numbers a little more visible. As the pump has a large range (up to 160 PSI) the gauge isn’t that easy to read as the 10 PSI increments are quite small. You’ll probably want a digital gauge to double check the pressure you are running.
The hose exits from the bottom of the pump with a swivelling junction just under the gauge, helping the hose to move around freely on either side of the pump. I would have liked the hose to be a little longer but it does work adequately as it is. Crankbrothers have also included a hidden needle and plastic valve adaptor in one side of the pump handle which I have actually put to use after losing my swiss ball pump.
The Crankbro’s Gem Floor Pump is a neat and versatile addition to any workshop, it won’t break the bank and in the three month’s I’ve had the pump it has certainly stood up to some abuse.
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