5MV-EP – ThinkRideR: Electric Pump Review.
————————————–
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/fiveminutevelo
In this video I buy an electric bicycle pump made by a company called ThinkRideR. I bought it through Aliexpress for a modest £25 (UK sterling). I give the device a thorough test to find its strengths and weaknesses. Watch on to find out more.
Here is a link to the device I purchased:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007799001105.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.5.28a91802tU1eCv
Note I purchased the pump with my own money and I have no links to Aliexpress, the seller or manufacturer.
==========================
About the 5MV channel
————————————–
My name is Terry and I love cycling. I have named my channel “Five Minute Velo” (5MV). I have called it 5MV because the videos I upload will (mostly) last no longer than five minutes. Each video will cover just one subject that is described in the title. Although the channel is mainly about cycling on the road, I will also cover some light (gravel) off road riding, cycle touring and ebiking. No matter what, much of the advice will be pertinent to many branches of the sport/pastime.
I welcome constructive comments that will help me improve the videos that I produce and upload.
There may be some dry humour in some of the videos, so dry it may not always be obvious :-).
====================
My Strava profile can be found here:
https://www.strava.com/athletes/7723982
Cambridge Cycling Club website:
http://www.cambridge-cycling-club.org.uk/
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/fiveminutevelo/
Photos of 2019 Tour of low countries:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/3ierczDfurM1gTGi7
Random cycling photos (will be updated from time to time):
https://photos.app.goo.gl/VZBhCWcQZtynsJF1A
====================
Terry
For many years, I’ve been using mechanical pumps like this one. This is quite a small Top Peak Race Rocket, and overall, I found it excellent. However, as I’ve moved to larger volume tires, using mini pumps like this become more of a problem. So, I decided to give into the continuous march of technological development and buy an electric mini pump. Although I got this mini pump through AliExpress, I decided not to go for the cheapest one that I could find. And that’s because this has some features that cheaper ones don’t actually have. And I’ll go through some of those features later. As you can see, I’ve opened this before. There’s the pump. There’s a little bag for putting the pump in. And there’s a bag of bits and an instruction manual. What’s in this bag of bits? We have a small extension lead, USBC charging cable, a thing I think for pumping up footballs, and two valve fittings. One for Shrider here in white and one for press in red. And there’s the pump. Oh, it comes with a lanyard which could be useful. As you can see, this pump has a little screen on it and you can adjust the pressure to a specific value and then it should turn off. I’ll demonstrate that in a minute. It’s manufactured by a company called Think Rider. Although it looks like they’ve probably got dyslexia. Oh, that didn’t help. So, you turn it on using this button. Press and hold. And as you can see, the screen comes on. And I particularly like this one because it’s actually quite a large, clear screen. And there’s several pieces of information on here. In the top right, there’s a battery level indicator. There’s an indication of what the measurement units are. This is set at PSI. This green 50 is the pressure that it’s set to. So, that’s the pressure the pump will try to achieve. And the large white figure is the pressure that the pump is currently producing. I can screw this extension onto the bottom there if I want to, or I can just put the valve adapter straight onto the pump, which I think I will do here. So, the ergonomics of the screen are quite nice. And I can change the target pressure by using these up and down arrows. Right. An interesting little function is it has a little light. And if I press this button quickly three times, the light comes on. It’s not a very good light, but it’s probably better than nothing. I’ll leave this to fully charge, and then I’ll see how many times I can pump up my Turbo Verdue tires, which are quite large, 27.5x 2.25 wide, from zero to 30 PSI. The specification on this says it will pump tires up to 120 PSI. That’s much much higher than I actually want to pump tires up. But I may try it on some narrower tires just to see how well it works on those. Although I’m unlikely to go anywhere near 120 PSI, probably around about 80. The unit takes about 2 hours to charge from zero to 100%. So, I’ve let the tire down. Here’s a stopwatch so we can time how long it takes to pump up. And I’ve got this set to 30 PSI. So, if I put that onto there and now press start on the timer and the pump. I can hear it’s very noisy. As you can hear, it’s very noisy. [Music] You can see this is quite a big tire and that’s why so far it’s taken almost a minute to pump up and it’s still only at 20 PSI. There we are. Um, it took around about well just short of 2 minutes to pump this tire up from 0 to 30 PSI. That’s a lot quicker than it would have taken had I used my mini pump. I’m going to let this down now and see how many more times I can pump this tire up. Okay, that’s the second pump up. Okay, that’s the third inflation of this tire from zero to 30 PSI. And the battery indicator on here is now showing red. So, it’s suggesting this is empty. Never mind. I’m going to try again to see whether it will inflate a fourth time. Although the battery indicator is showing red, it’s still pumping. But will it get up to the full 30 PSI before it cuts out? That’s it. It cut out at 9 PSI and it’s turned itself off. So, this pump will pump this large volume tire up from 0 to 30 PSI three and a bit times. I’ll try this on a smaller volume tire, but I’ll take it to a higher pressure. But first, I need to charge this pump up. Some of these pumps can get quite warm when they’re being used. And although this one is heating up, it certainly can be touched without too much problem. So, now I’m going to pump up this tire, which is a 700C by 32 mm wide, to an indicated 80 PSI. This is the second inflation. So this is the third inflation and the battery indicator has just turned red. So whether it will get to full pressure, I don’t know or not. That’s it. Oh, it says it’s hot and it stopped. So I’ll wait for it to cool down and see whether it carry on. Okay, it’s been several minutes. I turned it off and then turned it back on. And now the hot indicator has gone off. So I’m going to try and reinflate this tire. See whether it will go up to the full pressure for the third time. Not quite. It’s just cut out. So it inflated this 32 mm. Actually, when I measured it, it’s only 30 mm wide. Tire just under three times before the battery was exhausted. I’ve pumped this up to 30 PSI on here. I’m going to check with my Schwabby tire pressure gauge just how accurate this pump could be. It says exactly 30 PSI. That’s it. It’s gone up to an indicated 80 PSI. I’ll just test the pressure using my Schwabby gauge. Uh 79.4 PSI. So, it’s looking like the indicated pressure on here is actually quite accurate. So, what’s my opinion of this Think Rider electric mini pump? Well, first of all, it comes with some nice accessories. For instance, it was fitted with this lanyard, which means you’re less likely to drop it or lose it. A small pouch for carrying it in this extension hose and adapters for both strider and press the valves. Overall, the unit is a little larger than some competing units, but it’s not unduly large. It’ll still fit into a back pocket or into your bicycle tool kit. The extra size is probably there because it has some features that other competing mini pumps don’t have. For instance, it has both this control panel which is quite large and easy to use and also the display which is very clear. And the display is nice because you can set both the target pressure currently here at 91 PSI and you can see the pressure that the pump is currently achieving. And when the achieved pressure reaches the target pressure, the pump turns off. And that means you’re unlikely to overinflate your tire. I’ve also found that the pressure registered on here is actually very close to that my Schwabby pressure gauge gives me. Therefore, I’ve got confidence that the pressure gauge in here is quite accurate. As you saw from the test, it also has an auto power off function, and that’s either when the battery is out or if it overheats. Another feature that many of these pumps don’t have is this little LED light. Now, it’s not very powerful. I’m not sure how useful it will be, but it’s nice to know that it’s there. It’s good that you can change the pressure reading from PSI to bar. And it would be nice if you could have alternative pressure units as well, but with PSI and bar, I’m happy. What are the downsides of this mini pump? Well, first of all, because of those extra features, it’s a little larger than some other competing electric pumps, but as I said, it’s not excessively large. In reality, it’s no more spacehungry than my mini pump. The other thing about this pump is in comparison to other pumps that I’ve heard working, this one is actually quite loud. Excessively loud? Well, I wouldn’t want to use it in a library. But when you’re out on the road, does that really matter? Probably not. As for reliability, I can’t tell. It seems to be quite nicely made and I have no reason to believe it won’t be reliable. However, I will continue to carry a manual mini pump as well as this pump just in case it fails. As I’ve shown, this unit will inflate a tire around about three times. And you have to ask yourself, will the ability to inflate a tire just three times be enough? I would say on a day ride, you’d have to be very unlucky to need all three inflations. However, on multi-day rides, it may not be enough to quell your anxiety. Only you can decide if three inflations is enough. For me, I can charge this from my ebike battery. So, I will be taking it on my up and cominging multi-week tour. I will be making some videos about that. So, consider subscribing if you want to see those. However, I will be taking a normal manual pump as well. That’s because the reliability of this e- pump is unknown and also I’m a belt and braces sort of guy. This electric pump costs me just under £25 and that includes taxes and delivery. Now, that’s not too different to a high-end manual mini pump. Based on the cost and the features in this pump, I’m pretty happy with it. However, if you’ve got any experience of using this pump or other pumps and you want to let me know your views, leave them in the comment section. Finally, if you found this review useful, please give the video a thumbs up. And for future reviews and for other stuff about cycling, consider subscribing from me. Until that next video, it’s goodbye.
2 Comments
Excellent review. Thank You
Good review – thanks, but how long did it take to get to 80psi?