Birzman The Pump with Helix II

The Birzman The Pump with Helix II is a high-quality product made to exacting engineering standards. The pumping action is smooth and the head swivels smoothly, though there are a couple of minor niggles on what is generally a very well-thought-out piece of kit.

Check out our best track pumps buyer's guide for other alternatives, or our best bike pumps guide for all sorts of inflating options.

Taiwan's Birzman has a design ethic angled towards minimalist, brushed silver and big numbers – and the Pump With Helix II doesn't disappoint on either of these fronts. The barrel is CNC-machined from aluminium and has a very smooth action: if you lift the handle and let it go, there's so little friction it sinks down under its own weight – not many pumps do that.

The handle is nice and wide, covered in a rubbery smooth material that's very grippy. There's a small indent in the top for the hose to sit in. The gauge is both huge and set with bold gradients, making it easy to spot your target pressure. The Bar measure is in inside the ring in green, with the PSI outside in white, marked in 5psi gradients.

The hose is fixed at the base and measures 125cm – making The Pump one for use with bikes on the floor, not in a workstand let alone hanging from a rack in a garage or on a car. For comparison, the Topeak Joe Blow Pro Digital with the hose mounted at the top can reach 67cm higher, getting to valves a good six feet off the ground.

The hose is secured by passing it over the handle and down to a plastic hose clip. This can slide up and down the barrel, and needs tightening with a 2.5mm hex to secure it at the right height to hold the head in place under the tension of the hose stretched over the handle – but I can't help wanting for a proper clip that grabs the hose itself.

The amount of friction is just enough to hold the hose and thereby the handle in place as you lift the pump. But if you sling The Pump in the back of a van, your car boot or in among other stuff in the shed, the head is inevitably going to come loose. It then becomes an untidy mess of sliding handle, flailing hose and existential woe as to why Birzman didn't design a better clip.

The Helix II isn't a universal head – you need to unscrew and rescrew it if you want to jump between Presta, Schrader or even Dunlop valves. There is an argument that universal heads are Jacks of all valves, masters of none – and most of them rely on expanding rubber washers to keep them in place. Ironic then that Birzman's own Apogee head is my reference point for how to do both types in one.

The Helix II head relies on a reversible silver barrel that threads onto either Presta or Schrader, laser-etched as 'P' or 'S', which ensures a rock-solid fit with no leakage. On a Presta the barrel takes three and a half rotations, so it's very well-engaged on the valve core. If you want Dunlop, you leave the silver barrel off altogether. The silver barrel threads onto the gold Dunlop body that then rotates in the hose clamp section. This means the head can swivel smoothly when screwed hard onto any type of valve. There's no bleed valve so if you need to go down again you have to unthread the hose, release air, reattach and pump up carefully to your target.

The barrel requires just 14mm of visible valve body and core together – which is much less than many other universal heads that rely on gripping the threaded side of the valve body. If you are running short valve bodies or have very deep rims, this 14mm-minimum depth may be a major bonus.

For a 700c 23mm tyre, 13 strokes gets you to 80psi, 20 gets you to 110psi, and 25 to 130psi. There's no notable increased difficulty going past 80psi either, which is down to the smooth action and large handle that spreads pressure on your hands and allows a wider grip for more efficient use of your arm and shoulder muscles.

At the other end of the tyre spectrum, on my borderline-monster-truck 29 x 3in off-road tyre it took 45 easy strokes to get to 25psi, and there was no wild jumping around of the gauge during pumping so it was easy to sneak up on the target pressure.

The 55cm stroke is pretty long and this shows in the amount of air the pump can shift per stroke. Birzman has done a good job of balancing the barrel diameter to ensure at the bottom of the stroke as pressures head north of 100psi, that it's still easy-ish to push.

The act of unscrewing the barrel releases a fair bit of air: if you're at 90psi, the pressure after unscrewing the head is about 3-4psi lower – as measured with an SKS digital checker – as the valve core reacts to the removal of the barrel and seals itself. So if you were aiming for a certain pressure, go 3-4psi higher and you should be good.

Value

At £85 The Pump with Helix II is not cheap – but it's a mid-range price for what is a high-end pump.

At a lower price John rated the £55 Cannondale Precise Floor Pump highly. It has a universal head and finicky bleed valve, but on the maths doesn't shift quite as much air per stroke as the Birzman.

George liked the £80 Truflo Classictrax Floor Pump, with a quick-release head and bleed valve, it's a good alternative option to The Pump. Certainly the lever-style release will be faster to use and possibly lose less air when releasing.

Birzman sells both the head and gauge as spare parts, if you need to repair and your two-year warranty has expired.

Conclusion

The Birzman The Pump with Helix II is a high-quality pump capable of easily getting to high pressures, with absolute certainty that the head will stay attached to the valve core, long or short. You need to be onboard with a threaded head rather than a lever-type head, but otherwise the hose clip is the only annoying departure from what is a great design.

Verdict

Very smooth pump stroke that shifts a lot of air easily, and with a high-quality screw-on head