Flextail Tiny Bike Pump

The Flextail Tiny Bike Pump is a very handy little gadget if you're officially too posh to push, but you do need to be aware of its limitations.

​> Buy now: Flextail Tiny Bike Pump for £81.44 from Flextail

Being only a little taller than a Zippo lighter and not much more than twice as thick, this is very easy to stash in a jersey or bag. It's too bulky for trouser pockets though, if you're riding casually. I measured it at 7.5 x 4.5 x 3.2cm, including its silicone cover but ignoring the nozzle.

It's also pretty light at 132g. The upside is that it's small and light enough that you won't really notice it's there until you need it; the downside is there's no room inside for either a gauge or a particularly big battery.

The gauge you can get around to a degree with a bit of experimentation and a stopwatch; in fact, given that you can do nothing about the runtime of the 350mAh battery, timing each use is a good idea anyway. I found it would only get two pretty average-sized road bike tyres to rideable pressures before dying.

With a full charge it can take a 28mm tyre (on a 21mm internal-width rim) to 70psi in 90 seconds, which accords pretty well with Flextail's claims. The company says it will reach 80psi in that time, but that's with a 25mm tyre (and an unspecified rim width, a detail which also affects air volume).

It's a fairly loud pump, and slows gradually but noticeably until the 30 second mark, when it seems to settle down to a pretty steady churn.

Moving to a second tyre with just a couple of minutes cooling time – this gets warm but, with the silicone sleeve, never close to excessively hot – you'll notice it's already lost a little oomph. Second time around it takes more like 45 seconds to halt the RPM decline and settle into a steady rhythm, and after 90 seconds it's 3-4psi short of its first effort.

Putting the pump back on the same tyre only got me another 40 seconds before it died completely, and a final pressure of 75psi. That's a total of 220 seconds of pumping; half a minute short of the claimed total, leaving you with a maximum of 1m 50s of air per tyre. If you're using this on bigger tyres with lower pressures, though, you may get more.

Still, it's an emergency pump, and it'll take two tyres to a very rideable pressure in short order and with zero effort. That seems perfectly reasonable, especially as it only takes a claimed 25 minutes (actually 27 by my watch) to recharge. It's not catastrophically heavier than a typical manual pump either; the Topeak Roadie 2Stage, for instance, is 102g.

Flextail says this can go to 100psi, but if you're trying that it's going to take some time, and that'll be the only tyre you'll do before it gives out.

How to choose the best bike tyre pressure – balancing speed, comfort and grip

Switching this on requires a long press, and results in a musical chime, so it's unlikely to activate accidentally in a bag or without you noticing. There's an LED in the button for information, but it's not that useful; it turns green when it reaches 100% charged, but outside of charging it's always red. Even if you turn it on when it's fully charged. There's no battery level indication of any kind. Then again, with such a brief life perhaps it doesn't matter.

Obviously there's no gauge either, but that's understandable – this would surely be heavier and more expensive if there was.

Value

At £81.44 this isn't the cheapest way to blow air into a couple of tyres, but it's close to the Cycplus Cube Mini Pump that we reviewed recently. That's £70.64 and has a smaller-still 300mAh battery, as does the nanoFumpa bike pump at £89.

Alternatively, that Topeak Roadie 2Stage mentioned above is £36.99 and will only stop pumping air if you do, while inflators like the £11.99 Zefal EZ Control CO2 Pump are light, simple, and don't need a plug to 'recharge' – so long as you always carry enough cartridges, of course. And cartridges are an ongoing cost.

You may well prefer the hand-warming effect of the Flextail to the flash-freeze of rushing CO2, mind you...

… or you could check our best bike pumps buyer's guide, which covers pumps and inflators of all sorts.

Overall

This is a good alternative to the very similar tiny pumps mentioned above, and competitively priced. It's really for emergencies only, and has limitations a hand-powered pump just doesn't, but it does just what it's supposed to do really well.

Verdict

Simple, effective and very easy to use – for the short time the battery lasts, anyway