Pump Comparison: BikeHut Suspension Shock Pump vs Topeak Joe Blow Sport

It's comparison time!

This week it's the compact and rugged BikeHut Suspension Shock Pump vs the large and dependable Topeak Joe Blow Sport.  Note: all comments made in regard to mountain board tyres (~8" - 10").  The suitability of these pumps for other applications may vary.

I did a review approximately 8 months ago on the BikeHut Suspension Shock Pump here, that got quite a few hits, but probably from mountain bikers who want to pump up their shock pumps to ridiculously high pressures. Since then, I decided to replace it with the considerably larger Topeak Joe Blow Sport. My reasoning behind this was that the BikeHut, whilst small, was never quite small enough and as a consequence ended up left in the boot of the car more times than not.  I usually knew the type of terrain I will be riding and set an appropriate psi accordingly. In addition, if I am unlucky enough to get a puncture, I don't usually carry a repair kit and associated tools with me anyway so a travel pump in these circumstances would be useless.

My requirements for a new pump was then based on the following requirements: a) be reasonably cheap, b) have a pressure gauge, c) be reasonably rugged, and d) have a decent nozzle (whatever the bit is called that attaches to the valve; nozzle will do for now).

The BikeHut pump has a great nozzle.  Being of a screw type, it fixes nice and securely onto the valve and with its flexible hose, is great at getting at those sometimes hard to get valves (Rockstar Pros with valves facing inwards for example).  I couldn't find a larger pump with this kind of nozzle, the preferred one being a lock on/off type arrangement that is fatter around the valve.  Fortunately, so far this has not been an issue, though I may at a later date switch the valves across...

Size, not at present being an issue for reasons given above, meant that I could go for a far larger pump.  This has the great benefit that I'm not sat by the side of the road pumping furiously for a couple of minutes with the BikeHut to get up to pressure.  With the Topeak, it only takes half a dozen pumps to get up to my maximum 40psi from completely flat.  From my previous BikeHut review I stated that it was probably the furious pumping that lead to its final demise; the Topeak I'm hoping should last a while due to it's relative under-use.

The BikeHut Shock Pump should be praised for its ruggedness.  To reinstate, the pump is still in great condition, it's only the rubber seals that have perished.  Likewise, the Topeak benefits from metal shaft, metal base and robust aluminium alloy locking lever (to quote from the BikeRadar review here).

Only downsize (so far) is the length of hose of both products.  I could accept the BikeHut's short 6 inch hose done to keep the overall product down to size, but the Topeak hose isn't quite long enough to reach from the ground to the kitchen work surface (don't tell the wife!).  An extra 12 inches max would have been useful, but when working at ground level, all is okay.

Back to the requirements above.  Firstly, cost - around £20 for the BikeHut and £30 for the Topeak.  I'm hoping the Topeak should last a few years and justify the slightly higher cost.
Pressure gauge.  Again, both units come equipped with one though I don't intend to try and find out if they are accurate or not.  BikeRadar says the Topeak gauge is 'pretty accurate', though in reality, as long as all your tyres are approximatley the same then that's good enough for me.
I've mentioned ruggedness and nozzles already so that'll do for now.  Will update as and when something breaks.

Have a good weekend all those riding this weekend for Round 3 of the ATBA championships!  Hope the weather stays nice, and remember, we really want to see those videos!

MBS Jeep Renegade

Original Configuration:

Overall length 108cm
Weight 7.0kg
Bindings: ??
Trucks: Skate
Tyres: 8" diamond tread
Hubs: Rockstar (Plastic)
Brake included

MBS Board Chooser

Deck Stiffness: * (Maple Deck Laminate)
Recreation: Best
Freeride: Good
Carving: Good
Boarder X: Good
Freestyle: Good
Big Air: Not Specified
Kiting: Good

MBS Core 8 : 2005

Original Configuration:

Overall length 108cm
Weight 5.4kg
Bindings: F2
Trucks: Skate
Tyres: 8" T1
Hubs: Rockstar (Plastic)

MBS Board Chooser

Deck Stiffness:2
Recreation: Damn Good
Freeride: Good
Carving: Good
Boarder X: Good
Freestyle: Damn Good
Big Air: Good
Kiting: Best

MBS Leon Robbins Pro 16 : 2005

Original Configuration:

Overall length 118cm
Weight 6.7kg
Bindings: F3
Trucks: Matrix Lite
Tyres: 8" T1
Hubs: Rockstar (Plastic)

MBS Board Chooser

Deck Stiffness: 5
Recreation: Not Stated
Freeride: Good
Carving: Damn Good
Boarder X: Damn Good
Freestyle: Best
Big Air: Best
Kiting: Damn Good

MBS Comp 16 : 2005

(Regular readers, ignore all of this and later similar pages - bit of an experiment)

Original Configuration:

Overall length 118cm
Weight 6.8kg
Bindings: F3
Trucks: Matrix
Tyres: 8" T1
Hubs: Rockstar (Plastic)

MBS Board Chooser


Deck Stiffness:4
Recreation: Not Stated
Freeride: Damn Good
Carving: Best
Boarder X: Best
Freestyle: Best
Big Air: Damn Good
Kiting: Best

Hovercam anyone? and a bit of nice animation

fibretec im haslital... from dedicam.tv on Vimeo.

Anyone up for using one of these in their next mountainboard DVD?  Probably not in the woods, but certainly adds an extra dimension to things!

And now for something completely different..


Skateboardanimation from Tilles Singer on Vimeo.

Past, Present, Future 27th July 2010

Completely forgot to mention last weekends 'Cream Teas and Jam', the fun-tastic comp run by the BFC lads.  Rather than being a formal affair, riders session different different sections of the centre, (in this instance Bugsboarding) before selecting their top 5 riders.  See how it all went down straight from the Yum Yum BFC pages with a video from Tom Sharp here.

Edit: Official BFC video now online!

Cream Teas and Jam 2010 Round 2 from Rhys Crilley on Vimeo.

(Wonder how long we'll refer to them as videos since the medium is fast disappearing?  Will I ever get opportunity to watch those dusty Jackie Chan videos ever again?)....

Meanwhile, get pumped for this weekends ATBA Round 3 competition down at Haredown Mountain Board Centre. Weather may not be looking all that good, but that doesn't usually stop the die-hards.  Usual format means that it's assumed that the BoarderX will be on Saturday 31st July and Freestyle on Sunday 1st August.  I'll not be there myself due to other commitments (and because its a long way), but am holding out for Round 4 towards the end of August, details as always listed on the ATBA-UK website.

Closer to home, my mate Phill's progressing well on his brakeless Comp 26X.  After adjusting the trucks appropriately it seems to carve nicely and bar the deck starting to become a little floppy, has good quality components throughout.  Is weird to ride due to lack of heel straps, but then that's just me.  We had a nice little session Wednesday night which was going fine till I got a puncture right through my Primo Strikers.  Typical that I spend the week before riding through thorn bushes and all sorts, and then get a puncture on a golf course.  On the advice of Mutley on the Surfing Dirt Forums (instructions here), I've Slime'd my tyres.  Not had opportunity to ride them yet, but I can feel a report coming up soon....

Truck resistance through shocks/dampas

Most modern truck systems allow a degree of adjustment to either tighten or loosen them.  Usually this is done according to whether you'd prefer to have a board that is light to steer with the ability to change direction quickly, but with a possibility of speed wobbles at higher speed, or a rigid set-up that has stability at speed but turns far less.  I would guess that most people settle on a compromise depending on how fast they are likely to go and how well they deal with the wobbles.


Lets take the good old MBS Matrix truck* (later proceeded by the 'Lite' version and then earlier this year by the 'Pro' version).  The Matrix had a huge amount of variability on ways you could adjust the truck tension as detailed earlier here.  For those people who have forgotten, or can't be arsed to click the link the official options are to: (from brutal to subtle)
a) To move the springs/shocks from inner to outer position to increase tension.
b) To insert shocks, or change them from yellow to orange to red shocks for increased tension.
c) To turn the adjustment screw clockwise to pre-compress the eggs and thus increase tension.

Remolitions Smilie reminds us that MBS 'forgot to mention you kinda have put a bit of compression on the springs. Other wise your eggs are just going to rattle around doing nothing :-)'.  Or worse than nothing, they can fall out.

Anyway, options 'a' to 'c' are just the official options.  A popular alternative is to switch the MBS egg shocks for Trampa Dampas.  The first advantage of this is the additional range of dampas:

Yellow: 65 shore (the shore being a measurement of hardness of a material)
Green: 75 shore
Red: 80 shore
Blue: 85 shore
White: 90 shore

A consequence of using dampas over shocks is that with the dampas being slightly longer, that it is not necessary to crank the springs down as far before the dampa becomes compressed.  A repercussion of this being that the springs have less compression when turning starts to take place and so in theory the springs should a) last longer, and b) have less influence on the turning characteristic.

If turning can be improved and a consequence of this is that the springs are really only there to 'hold the springs in', is it worth removing the springs altogether?

The makers of the 'West Coast ultra-light springless kit' certainly think so.  Developed by Leon Dove it appears to hold the egg shock in place using a long screw, and then uses a longer bolt so that the truck suitably compresses the shock.  Those thinking of purchasing a system should bear in mind that only orange and red egg shocks are recommended (dampas bend apparently), and that relatively new top hangers are required so that everything lines up nicely.  However, fans of the system rave about fantastic progressive turning and no speed wobbles!
Some words from Leon himself can be found on Remolitions pages here with EvilC's review here and a few more pictures by Mikael here from the popular pages of Surfing Dirt.

But that's not all; there is the option to have different shocks or dampas in the front and rear trucks with a popular option to have stiffer ones in the front to aid stability at speed, with less stiffness to the rear to aid turning.  Of course, other variations exist as well as more complicated mathematics if you start to take into account truck angle and the suchlike.  I looked at it once in the hope of coming up with a model to allow people to select the various options and get an idea of how their set-up would compare to others.  However, the maths got in the way and nothing ever came of it.

As an aside, all these options in truck tensions make me wonder how much your available kit defines your style of riding.  For example, when I started riding, I would like to bomb the local hills and so was encouraged by other local riders to insert green dampas.  Had I stuck to yellow egg shocks, would I have been more inclined to carve out of necessity or would I have excelled at bombing hills on loose trucks?  Hmm, another post for another day.

(* - Disclaimer: Other trucks exist, but I haven't ridden then, though the theory should be similar...)

MBS Through the Ages: New and old MBS from mountainboard.ru

Whilst researching a couple of old boards for a mate of mine, I can across a nice article by mountainboard.ru listing the range starting from the 2001 Comp 16,

all the way through to the 2009 Core 90:

It doesn't list this years TK or LD models, but is still a useful tool, especially as many of them look similar and use similar names.

Anyway, the list is here, and is handily translated into English thanks to Google.

This has got me thinking though, perhaps a 'identify that board tool' could be fun.  Watch this space....

Incidentally, the board turned out to be a 2003 Comp 26X in excellent condition.  Nice find Phill!

Downhill Action: Bardonecchia World Downhill Championship, Practice. Rider: Tom Kirkman

An ace on bike vid following Tom K down the Bardonecchia World Downhill Championship track 2010.
Looks like a fantastic track and well worth a view if only for an excellent lesson in speed control.

Edit: and now Pete Tatham too:


This and a whole load more information on the facebook page here.

In other news, I'm still riding about once a week.  Not getting enough sleep due to the 'young-un'.  Not blogging enough due to work..... But hopefully out this weekend with a mate who wants to buy a board for his kite, but could be converted to the world of downhill.... Watch this space.

Ps, I never did go back to the chiropractor.  I'm just very suspicious about the whole thing.

Cheers, big ears!