Park Tool Home Mechanic Floor Pump PFP-8 review

Park Tool is one of the most recognisable brands in the world of cycling tools, with its signature blue equipment a common sight at the pro tour and your local bike shop. Its snappily named PFP-8 is its current track pump, and at £30 / $36 / AU$80 is very competitively priced.

• How to pump up a tyre
• What's the fastest tyre size for mountain biking

The pump feels fairly sturdy in use, but the wide yet not overly long footplates are definitely worth using because these add to the pump’s stability.

The barrel doesn’t have a massive volume, so mountain bikers might find extra pump strokes are needed to get tyres up to pressure. However, the flip-side of that is the stroke is fairly easy to push because you’re not forcing masses of air through the hose.

The pump itself doesn’t have the longest body, so tall riders might find themselves doing a lot of stooping – that said, ergonomically it gets extra points for the curved, plastic handle that’s comfortable when pushing hard, despite not being the widest out there.

The head is a simple flip-lock design with holes for Schraeder and Presta valves. It’s plastic in construction, but while it's not fancy looking, this doesn’t affect performance. For the price, you can forgive Park for not including a bleed valve, too.

The gauge, located at the base, has a large, uncluttered look with bar and PSI readings up to 11 bar / 160psi, which should work for most riders out there.

The gauge isn’t the most accurate around, but will help guide you with pressure. That said, I found the needle jumped around a bit when pumping, which was frustrating, and the head sometimes released air on initial pumps before there was much air in the tube.