Blackburn Chamber HV Pump - Review
Floor pumps are an indispensable component of any garage… unless, of course, you love manically wanking away all day with a toothbrush-sized hand pump. You can get tendonitis that way. And go blind… Which leads us back to floor pumps—they’re key, but naturally not all are equal or even meant to do the same job. I realize that sounds odd. Naturally, pumps are all meant to inflate things, but which things precisely? A high-pressure rear shock? A 700x23c tubular road slick? A low-pressure knobby-tire? Blackburn’s $80 Chamber HV is aimed at that last of these and, consequently, tops out at 50 PSI—making it useless for road bike or cyclocross tires, but perfectly suited to inflating fat tires in very precise increments. If you’re a geek about nailing your tire pressure, this is the pump for you. Or, at least, that’s the sales pitch.
Blackburn Chamber HV Pump Details
• MTB-specific, high-volume pump
• Oversized, steel barrel
• 4-inch wide "super sized" gauge
• Air-bleed button
• Presta/Schrader/Dunlop-compatible valve head
• Integrated bottle opener
• MSRP: $80 USD
• www.blackburndesign.com
• MTB-specific, high-volume pump
• Oversized, steel barrel
• 4-inch wide "super sized" gauge
• Air-bleed button
• Presta/Schrader/Dunlop-compatible valve head
• Integrated bottle opener
• MSRP: $80 USD
• www.blackburndesign.com
Blackburn went all Chuck Norris-manly with the camo paint job and the massive handle, and then decided to appeal to your sensitive side with a bottle opener. Pre-ride, garage beers? It's a thing, I guess.
What psi are you at? With its massive, day-glo orange pressure gauge dial, the answer is always clear. Even from atop Mount Everest..
In the Shop
I used the Chamber HV on both 2.8 and 2.35 tires. The high-volume pump is designed to move a metric crap ton of air in relatively few strokes. And it does precisely that. It consistently takes 13 strokes of the pump to bring a Maxxis Rekon 2.8 up to 15 psi. I also used the pump on a variety of “normal” tires, including a 27.5x2.35 Bontrager G5. Bringing a 2.35 tire up to 20 psi required 11 strokes. So, yeah, that’s fast. For comparison’s sake, the quite-fast Specialized Air Tool Pro required 20 pumps (versus the Chamber HV’s 13) to inflate the 2.8 tire to 15 psi and 17 pumps (to the Chamber’s 11) to get the 2.35 tire up to 20 psi.
Quick? Very.
Accurate? Hmmmm… It’s decent. Not quite as precise as I’d like. I cross verified the Blackburn’s gauge with a Topeak SmartGauge D2 digital pressure gauge and found the Blackburn gauge to be off by about 2 psi (it would read 15 psi, when it was actually 17 psi) when inflating a variety of 2.8" plus-size tires. The Chamber HV—and this probably matters more to most readers—is spot on when measuring air pressure at the higher values required for 2.35 to 2.5-inch tires. So take my criticism with a grain of salt. If you aren’t inflating 2.8" or wider tires, the Blackburn gauge is certainly accurate enough. If you are all about the 2.8s or winter fat bike tires, the Chamber HV's gauge is not as precise as it should be. A few psi sounds innocuous, but on that wide of a tire, a few psi makes a world of difference in actual ride quality.
The pump head automatically adjusts to both Presta and Schrader valves. It’ll also work with Dunlop valves (though you’ll need to fiddle with the guts of the head in order to make that happen). Blackburn has added a handly little bleed valve on the pump head to help you fine tune your tire pressure during inflation, but it lets air out for an eternity before the needle actually registers any change in psi…and when it does so, it drops by four psi increments. Sorta lame.
Pinkbike's Take:
 | The Chamber HV has a lot going for it. It is very stable, thanks to its wide, metal base. The Chamber is also reasonably sturdy; getting knocked around in the bed of your truck will not put it off its game. If you are all about inflating your tires quickly, the Chamber HV is a solid choice, particularly for larger volume tires. The pump also shines when it is time to set up tubeless tires. The gauge could be more accurate when it comes to registering psi on 2.8-inch (and larger) tires and the bleed valve could use some work, but that is the only real chink in the armor here. - Vernon Felton |
Author Info:
Member since Apr 11, 2014
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"Yeaaaaahhhhh!"
If you just HAVE to have your tire at 15 psi; 16 or 14 psi won't do; you need to use the same pump every time. And compensate for temperature. And learn a bit about metrology because there's basically no chance you're getting the accurate, repeatable results you think you are, and since you don't notice, it proves that it doesn't matter as much as you think.
Furthermore, how does he know the Topeak SmartGauge D2 is accurate? Maybe it is off!
Cool looking pump though.
(actual). So 20 PSI(gauge) is actually 34.7 PSI(actual) - and being off 2 PSI is ~5% error. I don't know if you've bought accurate measurement devices before or not, but $80 is pretty cheap for just a mediocre gauge outside of the bike world.
Also, Weens above has a good point - if you want your tire to "feel" like 15psi, you need to account for all sorts of things besides the gauge reading (temperature, weather, altitude, rubber durometer due to that temp, etc) if you can really tell ±1 PSI difference. Read into inflategate conspiracy theorists for further details.
If like me, you just bought this pump and have issues with gauge reliability, it's Blackburn's "Anyvalve" Pump Head that is causing it.
The problem-----> www.pinkbike.com/video/499556
The Fix/Workaround-----> www.pinkbike.com/video/499557
The point is to have a consistent pump gauge so you don't have to carry or even use another pressure gauge.
The Anyvalve pump head has an anemic Air Bleed. This chuck makes the entire pump unreliable and inconsistent making the pump gauge needle randomly jump down in pressure, Garbage.
I installed an old Bell dual pump head and a REAL inline Air bleed valve I put together, and the pump gauge responded to the bleed button.
With the Real Air bleed valve the gauge is consistent. 2 psi low, but repeatable. Now the pump & gauge is reliable.
1. Is it consistent in its pressure reading at lower pressures? E.g. does it always read 17 when the digital gauge reads 15?
2. How do you know it's not the Topeak digital gauge that's wrong? (apologies if coming across like a troll)
I can't remember the last time I ran more than 40 on my CX bike. You'd have to be like super clysdale to need more than 50 psi in your cx tires. Note: a bunch of roadies telling you to start at 50 psi is not evidence that you need higher than that. Go look at what the pros run: tubulars never ever more than 30, never ever more than 40 for tubeless.
Now, how leaky is the valve? The JB MTN falls down pretty badly on this point.