I did not know that bicycle pumps wear out

:thinking:

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Yeah but at least that’s for the vehicle itself; I bet even most Bugatti owners would be OK with filling up their tires with a standard air pump instead of something that cost ten times as much as what other car owners were using.

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Long, long ago my grandfather had a bike pump with leather seals. I remember he taught me how to disassemble the pump to oil them when it stopped being easy to use.

I’m sure I over-oiled that old pump, and I’m just as sure that he didn’t care.

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The catch with more expensive pumps is that they aren’t just flash. They are designed around use cases that don’t apply to most users.

For example, if your running a track team inflating 30 to 50 sets of tires a day, with very particular rider pressure preferences, an accurate super rebuildable pump for a couple hundred bucks is a good investment. Replacing just gaskets every couple thousand inflations can save money when that happens several times a year. For us regular folks that same gasket could last decades and the dollars per tire inflation equation makes less sense.

That being said if Bugatti made an air pump I’m sure the price would be impressive (and it would certainly be a Nitrogen pump) :wink:

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Let’s try to raise the Schlumpf brothers on the good old Ouija BoardTM and find out!

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You’re missing the point- I wasn’t comparing Bugattis to bicycles, I was specifically using it as an example that the value curve is non-linear, and that this applies to all niches. I don’t care what someone pays for their bicycle pump, but it shouldn’t surprise anyone that such high end ones exist.

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I would say one exception might be NFTs, but the pedantic among us might argue that a vertical line is not actually linear :sweat_smile:

On topic, I have that exact bike pump in the OP, and consider it in the “sweet spot” of quality before the price starts taking off, at least for an average, ordinary user or family.
Also, does your product contain moving parts? Congratulations, your product is going to wear out, someday!

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Bicycle pumps used to wear out when I was a kid, but then you’d replace the “leather”, the seal between the piston head and the tube. It was like brake pads. They’re designed to wear out and be replaced. I suppose that’s frightfully old fashioned nowadays.

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That salient story was new to me… bending back to bicycles, there is the Schlumpf drive - a planetary gearing that can replace chainrings.

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I’d heard of these, I suppose it’s a bit like that 2 speed/freehub hub that roadies and gravel grinders are getting excited about at the moment - a substitute for a front derailleur system. I had not heard about the connection to ‘MTB Unicycles’…wtf…

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Yes, exactly, I should have put it like that. I did not know about the hype you talk about - I once owned a bike with an SRAM Dual Drive (a multi-speed cassette mounted to a 3-speed hub) that is that exact thing, but upon searching I am now realizing it is out of production unfortunately.

And yes, there is an MTB unicycling scene - I once attended a talk by a guy who, together with two friends, crossed the Alps on footpaths riding unicycles. After the talk, he unicycled on a handrail…

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The only time I’ve had a pump wear out is when the main cylinder broke away from the foot from all the strain of not-quite-vertical pumping.

I also use my bike pump to adjust the inflation on my car - works quite well!

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Yep, Silcas are awesome. I bought a basic model for $40 in 1994 (first consumer item I ever bought over the internet), and in 10 years of regular biking I might have replaced the leather gasket once, if at all. Whenever it would dry out I would just resuscitate it with some 3-in-1, and it would be good to go. Haven’t biked in years but probably still have that Silca around here somewhere . . .

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