The Taiwanese outfit Birzman has a reputation for innovative, high-quality tools, and it has delivered again with its Swift mini pump.
It’s just 19cm long and weighs a mere 97g, but its performance is very impressive. After 200 strokes you’ll get a road tyre up to about 60psi, and around 100psi after around 400 strokes. The plastic handle doesn’t feel quite as durable as some metal-handled pumps, though the massive metal chuck is a screw-on chunk of reassuring toughness and solidity, and sits at the end of a 12.5cm rubber hose. But that plastic does have one very distinct advantage – when the pressure mounts it doesn’t get anywhere near as hot as metal will do, which helps with the action.
Good things don’t always come in small packages, but in this case that cliché holds true.
