m@Robertson
In Memoriam 1962 - 2025
You would think so. They sure as hell sound loud and power-greedy. But that doesn't seem to be the case in use. I've been in a really bad way and needed to re-use the pump 3 or 4 times on phat tires (4.3" to 5.05") while waiting for the hole to fully seal up and there is no noticeable decrease in voltage. Some of that is probably because I am jumping off the saddle and rushing to get the pump connected and going, which means voltage sag is slowly recovering on the display while I use the pump, so that is masking the actual drain, but either way we're talking maybe it eats a couple of tenths of a volt off the pack after being used to fill up a fat tire a couple of times, which makes it effectively unlimited and not a range concern.
That can happen if you don't pull the pumps out every couple of months and top them up, which I did. But what that accomplished was I kept li ion cells pumped up to 100% for months ... and the expected thing happened and the cells crapped out. I got 18 months' use out of the first one that died, and pulled my other two off the bikes when I knew I could no longer depend on them.
They DID work for me when I needed them (I was deflating from paved path to going over beach sand, and then fully reinflating after the beach ride so I used them a lot on two 4.8" fat tires maybe once every few weeks) ... but only within that 18 month window.
I went thru a co2 phase. I got a deal on 25g cylinders which are absolutely huge. But you can only carry so many with you. I went thru that phase commuting in a town with lots of construction sites so lots of nails. sweated bullets that I would have enough single-use cylinders to get me thru an event as I limped home. Don't miss them at all.
If you have a battery with a proprietary connection that incorporates a mandatory data feed (Bosch et al), maybe you are out of luck. But otherwise a lot of people can do a battery hookup.
