rogerzilla
Legendary Member
The radial front wheel is a problem for pump heads. I find my Joe Blow head goes in ok on one side of the wheel, but not the other.
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OP
OP
ExBrit
Über Member
- Location
- Southern California
You are absolutely correct. I ended up taking the narrow chuck off the bad pump and putting it on the good pump. Problem solved.
12boy
Guru
- Location
- Casper WY USA
I have a lezyne pump which screws on. Works ok but its at least 10 years old and the gauge hasn't worked for years. My tool rolls also have little Lezynes and I like em.
berlinonaut
Veteran
- Location
- Berlin Germany
Who buys cheaply has to buy twice. Classic. You bought cheaply, had to buy twice and bought cheaply again. Seems you have not learned the lesson yet. Until now you spent in total 20-25€, do have one useless pump and one of unprove quality. You already spent 2/3 to 5/6 what a proven, reliable quality item would have costed (a Joe Blow is ~30€ when on offer) and are still in a bet. If you need to buy a third time you'd spent more and still have dubious quality. For a product that possibly lasts a lifetime (and thus costs less than GBP1 per year of use) saving a couple quid and taking the risk of total loss or uselessness does not seem the best pattern to me.
Obviously the choice is up to you and you may make a lucky punch from time to time this way. Still personally I would not go down that route.
Obviously the choice is up to you and you may make a lucky punch from time to time this way. Still personally I would not go down that route.
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I actually had floor pump before Brompton. It still works, just not the best. The issue is quite high pressure required for Brompton tyres. For any other use (and for other bicycles not requiring high pressure) floor pump is fine. Lidl pump has surprisingly similar look to Joe Blow. I don't have both pumps, so can't compare height and all, but from first sight it looks quite similar. The most similar feature is the handle. It is almost identical. Gauge is much bigger on Lidl pump. Once I will get a chance I will take some closeup pictures and people with other types of pumps will be able to check for themselves.
I am actually thinking to buy another Lidl product- Crivit mini bike pump. It is probably something I would rarely use and in case of a flat my most likely action is just to fold a bike and use public transportation. On other hand one included with Brompton (that was hanging on a metal bits of a frame) is absolute bottom of the line. I guess in absolute emergency it is better than nothing, but come on...
berlinonaut
Veteran
- Location
- Berlin Germany
Typically, that's the idea behind products like that. Fake iPhones follow the same strategy.
That says absolutely nothing about the quality of the pump (neither to the positive nor to the negative). But you can assume, that it not possible to build something of the same quality for 25% f the list price.There have been various tests on discounter products over the years and while some are really a good deal (assumed you planned to buy such an item anyway and did not buy it unintendedly just because it seemed a cheap offer
) this counts only for a small amout. If I remember correctly it was aroundish 10% (may be wrong - in every case it was a suprisingly low number). In all other cases the items were not cheaper than comparable products of comparable featureset and quality (or even the same products) from other sources. Sometimes (again I do not remember the exact amount, I think it was aroundish 30%) they were even more expensive. Plus typically, in comparison to a reputable standard product, the items lack interms of either design, finish, featureset, functionality, endurance - basically everything but safety.You cannot escape the common law of business balance:
"There is hardly anything in the world that cannot be made a little worse and sold a little cheaper, and those who consider price alone are that man's lawful prey. It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money – that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot – it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better."
The whole trick behind those offerings is psychology: They tell you theres an offer and through connection to their discounter image you believe that is must be cheaper than elsewhere. Then they say: There's limited supply and it is only available for a short time. So they trigger your brain that you might miss a good opportunity and through the short timebox of availability they finally create awareness to act, because else it's too late. Personally, I am very prone to that strategy
and laying out the mechanics behind it helps me not get cheated by it. Regarding the pump: I'd suggest trying to compare it with a genuine Joe Blow. The Joe Blow is in my eyes a "standard product" as it is of very good quality for a very reasonable price - basically a "no-brainer": If you need a good generic pump, get a Joe Blow. You can't go wrong. That does not mean that other pumps are less good or could not be even better (especially if you have non-standard needs like i.e. balloon tires), but typically comparable or better quality is more expensive, needs research and availability can be an issue.
If you compare them side by side you may find out that you did indeed find a bargain or the opposite.
Why spend money on a mini pump that you will hardly ever use if you already own one? This would really be burning money. The pump will clearly not be better than the stock Brompton one (which is NOT bottom line, I can guarantee you from experience with a lot of mini pumps of various price ranges) but pretty safely way worse. You would not win anything but loose money. Buying something that you don't need and does furthermore not even open new possiblities just because it's cheap is seductive but not clever.
I guess we can argue about everything forever. And I will not be a winner (not that it matters to me). On this forum there are plenty people from all walks of the life. Some are happy with second hand bikes from brands I never heard about it, some people strive to get the best of the best. The pump came alive trough the German discount bike brand https://www.monz-international.de/index.php/en which itself was a split from bigger company that does bike retailing - https://monz-fahrradwelten.de/ . At the end of the day it is just a pump. Relatively simple tool and it appears it is quality made especially at the price point. It is not some medical device in critical care with 24x7 operation.
PS tried to post this in one message but it said that the message is too long...
PS tried to post this in one message but it said that the message is too long...
berlinonaut
Veteran
- Location
- Berlin Germany
I would not call it arguing, rather discussing. And - at least for me - it is not at all about "winning".
That's interesting. I stumbled about Monz years ago when I bought my first trailer. It was sold via a surplus/overstock-dealer on Amazon and was labeled as a Monz product. A little research showed that it was in fact a "Monkii" from Taiwanese brand "freeparable". It even won a design award a couple of years earlier. The list price was insane, the discounted price from the surplus-dealer very attractive (~25% of the list price if I remember correctly) and the trailer seemed to fit my needs, so I went for it. Turned out I was in error - there was nothing spectacularly wrong with it designwise (apart from the hitch), but it was in every single thinkable aspect just far away enough from my needs that I ended up not using it. In the meantime I own a veritable herd of trailers that I regularly use for different purposes and the Monkii one is still unused. Maybe I should give it a go.
So at least back then Monz seemed to be an importer and distributor for brands from Asia. And I mean "brands", not randomly labeled stuff. This is actually a good sign for your pump. Doesn't necessarily need to be good, let alone perfect, but also not necessarily bad. They might however have changed/scaled their business model somewhat to the negative - don't know. My experience is more or less a decade old and sometimes they seem to rebrand stuff to "Monz" or maybe need to do that in the process of importing.
Still it would now be even more interesting to do a side-by-side comparison with something like the Joe Blow.
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The pump has Lidl owned "Crivit" logo molded in the handle. So it is a bit more effort from Monz. Also when on Monz website https://www.monz-international.de/images/sortimente/fahrrad/pumpen-02.jpg they have very similar pump with tiny difference (like the color of gauge), so I assume perhaps they sell the same pump with different retailers? As far as Lidl goes with their own brands... Over the years I had many products from them and some of them were really great at decent price.
I also don't say that this pump is better than Joe Blow. Joe Blow sells some spare parts for their pumps, so might be it is more sustainable in a long run. Also Topeak is genuine bicycle brand, so perhaps customer service is better. Everything comes at a price. On other hand money paid for a product is not always point to the quality. Back in a day I was a fan of electronics with fruit logo. Spend a lot of money with them. On other hand their customer service was not that great even under warranty. Parts/repair cost were astronomical. Were they quality made? Perhaps- some of the stuff still work decade later (although with little use on daily basis over the years), but good luck with faulty products. Plenty of their stuff were denied repairs and customers were ridiculed until class action lawsuits. Nowadays I am on a my own assembled PC rig running Linux that turned out an absolute bargain (parts bought before pandemic went up in price 2-3x) and 3 year old discount netbook is running great as it was made by reputable brand with great components. It is enough for my personal needs.
I also don't say that this pump is better than Joe Blow. Joe Blow sells some spare parts for their pumps, so might be it is more sustainable in a long run. Also Topeak is genuine bicycle brand, so perhaps customer service is better. Everything comes at a price. On other hand money paid for a product is not always point to the quality. Back in a day I was a fan of electronics with fruit logo. Spend a lot of money with them. On other hand their customer service was not that great even under warranty. Parts/repair cost were astronomical. Were they quality made? Perhaps- some of the stuff still work decade later (although with little use on daily basis over the years), but good luck with faulty products. Plenty of their stuff were denied repairs and customers were ridiculed until class action lawsuits. Nowadays I am on a my own assembled PC rig running Linux that turned out an absolute bargain (parts bought before pandemic went up in price 2-3x) and 3 year old discount netbook is running great as it was made by reputable brand with great components. It is enough for my personal needs.
berlinonaut
Veteran
- Location
- Berlin Germany
It really depends. Lidl, Aldi etc. obviously do not produce the stuff they sell but buy it from producers in big batches (which can lead to an interesting offer pricewise). Sometimes they sell overstock and somtimes there's a reason why there is overstock in the first place. Sometimes they get products that look like the normal ones but are customized and often have a more limited feature set. And sometimes they have things branded with their own brand and specially produced (like most of the medion stuff Aldi sells) - some of them may be good, some of them not so much. But in general the products are produced to target a low price - so sometimes got get astonishing value for the money, sometimes it turns out that they cut corners. You never know in beforehand.
Absolutely true. Still the already cited common law of business balance is unavoidable.
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rogerzilla
Legendary Member
FWIW, I also had an SKS Rennkompressor. It was hopeless. The stupid thing won't stand up as the folding feet are too small. The supplied EVA head didn't work at all (read the reviews; they rarely function). Replaced with dual head. Sort of worked, although the pressure trapped in the hose is unnerving when removing it from the valve. Then the gauge just fell apart. I threw it away and repaired my old Joe Blow instead.
. I love the Rennkompressor and it goes through N'th life in my hands. It has 3 or 4 heads right now, I can't remember - a real dragon 
.
