Pro Review - Park Tool PFP-2 Floor Pump

[francois]

Park Tool PFP-2 Floor Pump - review
By Francis Cebedo - Date: May 22, 2005
Everyone should own a floor pump...

Park Tool PFP-2 Floor Pump

A review.

By Francis Cebedo
Date: May 22, 2005

Photo ©: mtbr.com

View from the top

Pump head

PFP-2 is very tall

Overview:
Everyone should own a floor pump. Even at home, some folks try to get away with those compact trail pumps , often using the next $50 purchase on something more glamorous than a floor pump. But when you finally break down and get one, specially the right one, cycling maintenance becomes a happy place. Is the Park Tool PFP-2 the right floor pump? We don't think so.

The good:
For one thing, it looks good. Construction seems solid. The barrel is nice and shiny. The base is sturdy and wide and angled so you can step on it easily. The handle is also angled and its metal construction is covered by a thick clear rubber grip. The handles are nice and solid and exhibit no flex even as you pump up to those lofty road bike tire pressures. It certainly looks like it's worth $65, which is about as much as you can pay for a floor pump.

The bad:
Usually, with Park Tool products, 'the bad' column is empty. The company has a reputation for building functional and sturdy tools that last forever. Unfortunately, we believe this pump is not worthy of Park Tool's reputation.

- The built-in guage in our test pump was grossly inaccurate. It reads 20 psi but it's actually 40psi. It reads 90 psi but it's actually 140 psi. The error rate grows as the pressure increases so the guage is unusable.

- The pump is too tall for some. This took me a while to figure out but the photo below shows the problem. Fully extended, the pump is a good 8-10 inches than all other floor pumps I've used. Thus, when pumping the tire, I have to pull way high, beyond my comfort or power zone on every stroke. (I'm 5 feet 8 inches, btw)

- The head that connects to the tube valve is an abomination! First of all it's got two separate valves in one, a Schraeder and presta so the size is bigger and heavier than any pump head I've ever seen. The head's design seems cumbersome compared to the the presta/schraeder compact pump heads from Topeak. The presta hole, which is the only one I and most cyclists will use is not at the end which would be the idealocation. Now here's the real problems: the head is very hard to insert in a presta valve. One needs to push it in hard and the presta valve cannot move, thus one of those silly circle valve nuts becomes a necessity just to use this pump. An even bigger problem is this head does not want to go on tubes with presta valve extenders. The rubber hole seems too small.

- Finally, this pump has a strange action and it doesn't pump very fast for it's size. During each stroke, I feel like I'm fighting a spring at the bottom of the stroke and there is an uncomfortable 'thunk' when bottoming out. It also took 29 long strokes to pump a road tire to 140 lbs. It took a much smaller Topeak Joeblow (pictured above) 26 strokes.

- Recall! How can a floor pump be recalled? Aparently, this one can take your eye out. http://www.parktool.com/pfp2recall.shtml

Conclusion:
You still got to own a floor pump, just not this one. For $65 you're getting a nice looking pump with nice construction. But then you got to use it and that doesn't seem to be its core strength.

1.5 out of 5 stars!


Related Links:

Manufacturer Site: http://www.parktool.com
Mtbr.com user reviews: http://www.mtbr.com/reviews/Pump/product_125074.shtml