11-21-06 // Gear Review: Topeak Mountian Morph

$33 800-213-4561; topeak.com

Pumps have been undergoing a long and strange evolution. Back when six-speed cassettes were a novelty, pumps were long and mounted beneath a toptube or in front of a seat tube. Since bike frames at that time were made of plain steel, there was a fair bit of room and a sympathetic place to mount pumps. Back then, pumps were generally durable, able to inflate just about any tire good and fast, and weren’t given much thought beyond that. Then came the era of mini-pumps, brought about by either frame designs becoming convoluted through the demands of suspension, or by gadget-oriented riders who thought that downsizing was a good idea. Suddenly everyone was hyperventilating as they cranked out 500 strokes in their attempts to re-inflate tires with palm-size chunks of plastic whose lifespan could be measured in minutes.

Enter the Topeak Mountain Morph. It is not a mini-pump. It will not fit well on many frames. But it will inflate just about any tire you might have lying around, and it will do it quickly and easily. A fold-out foot, flexible hose and a flip-up T-style handle make for a solid and super-fast pumping platform, sort of an ersatz trailside floor pump. No double-action malarkey, just an ample air chamber, a stout piston and a sensible design that pushes a lot of air. I’ve used it to successfully seat and inflate UST tires, and I’ve used it to pump up motorcycle tires, and even in a rare moment of desperation, have pumped up a car tire with the thing. The one in my backpack was already a year old and much abused when I got my hands on it. That was three years ago. It has rattled around dutifully in various backpacks ever since, and aside from unscrewing it to grease the piston once or twice, has never been given a second thought in spite of the countless tires it has now pumped back up. It has performed with the sort of inanimate rock-solid durability that I’ve been missing since the demise of frame pumps.

At 250 grams and measuring almost 13 inches long, you’ll need a decent-sized hydration pack to stuff it into—jersey pockets are out of the question. Frame mounting is also a bit of a pickle, since the Mountain Morph is a big enough pump to be tricky to mount on small frames, and it tends to stick out, sort of like a wart on a model’s chin. So, if you’re hell-bent on a pocket-size unit, or a frame-mount pump, there might be better choices. But if you are in need of a bomber backpack pump that can be depended on, time after time, they don’t come any better than this.

—Mike Ferrentino