Cycling season is here: Riders are starting races, while others are prepping for the next century (100-mile ride). Meetups are blossoming with biking groups, and if you read closely the vast majority ask that you bring lights, a spare tube, and a pump on longer rides. Why? No matter what gets you out on the road, it’s best to go prepared.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could combine all the things you need to change a tire into one handy tool? Pil Ho Kim, founder of Leeman Co. Ltd., thought the same thing, and the Kickstand Pump was born.
Many a hardcore rider has done away with the kickstand. If you never plan to stop or leave your bike unattended, a kickstand seems like unnecessary weight. This is especially true for the hardcore weekend warriors — multiply that extra few grams by 100 miles and that’s how much more weight they’d be carrying back and forth. Among the racing set, carting around extra grams is a sin — pro racing is often a game of grams, for instance. People who spend better than $8,000 on a full carbon ride light enough to go airborne say adding extra weight simply to keep the thing upright is just insulting.
Still, when going out on long rides, a tube, tire lever and a pump are a must; when riding at night, a tail light is required by law in many states. The Kickstand Pump combines all those things into one tool that weighs a little more than 200 grams.
At that weight, it’s acceptable to even the weight-weenie crowd. The kickstand works by clamping between the rear dropout on the non-drive side and the exterior of your quick release (or bolt on). From there it can be easily folded up. In this position, the tail light is visible from behind. The light itself has three settings: two types of blink and a steady red. Now, in the off chance that multi-thousand dollar carbon purchase has to stand without its rider, it won’t get scratches from leaning on the nearest wall.
If the easiest way in the world to lose weight — combining many things into one — doesn’t appeal, then perhaps the quality of the pump will. Most portable pumps claim to hit 120 psi, when they really don’t. The Kickstand Pump avoids the design flaws that cause the failure in portable pumps by transforming into a floor pump that you secure with your foot, traditionally something too large to be easily carried on rides. It’s currently hitting 80 psi in a minute (compared to 40 psi with their comparison pump) and 120 psi max, and Leeman is working on improving the overall psi to 160.
Once removed from the kickstand position, the pump itself works much like other portable bike pumps: The light end screws off to release a tube that screws on to the valve and the pump body. The special part is that the metal head that serves as the tire lever and a kickstand hinge goes under your foot like the pedal of a floor pump, and you’re free to use two hands to inflate the tire.
Kickstand pump cleared $26,000 already on Kickstarter, and there’s still 19 days to go. A $49 donor gets a black kickstand pump, while $59 nets one with a carbon pattern. Hopefully the momentum of donations is maintained and this handy pump will be available to help avert roadside disasters as early as August.
