Review: Review: Birzman Zacoo Maha III Track Pump
An elegant, if somewhat pricey, solution to all your pumping needs.
A strong 9/10
I’ve never seen so many red underlined words as when writing the title of this review, but don’t let the naming put you off what is essentially a quality bit of kit!
Looking very on the neat and shiny side of things, it’s clear right from the outset that this track pump from the folks at Birzman is at the quality end of the scale.
With its wooden handle and polished pump barrel , married up to an aluminium base it’s certainly a looker – and at a penny under £50 it’s going to need more than good look to justify such a price tag!
I found the hose to be the pumps only really limiting feature, it’s not hugely long (although you can get hold of the same pump with a longer hose!), and although it does do the job required I would have preferred an extra 6″ to it for comfort and ease of use.
Speaking of ease of use, this pump has it in spadefuls. The cycling features a natty 5 degree lean, and although never having needed this before, it’s certainly useful in day to day pumping, just bringing the pump to a slight more natural angle.
In actual use the mechanism is smooth and hassle free – pumping up a some recently deflated tyres to a sand-feeling 130 PSI without resorting to jumping up and down on the handle (it took on average 32 pumps to do so)
In contrast to the wooden handle the adapter for the valves was significantly hi-tec, relying on a slide back collar to fit nicely to the valve.
And fit nicely it did, just a quick squeeze on the collar and the valve and everything clicked together just swell – the only time it struggled to get a cosy fit was when Oliver tried to fit it himself (Oliver is 4 so perhaps the error may have been on his side of the pump!)
In contrast to my previous track pump this fitting system was an absolute doddle, getting it both on and off again was simple and speedy, with no real fiddling needed.
The Maha III comes with fittings in the Snap-it head for both presta and schraeder (simply unscrew the presta head to reveal) valves – but handily the kind folk at Birzman also include adapters for balls and paddling pools!
I can confirm that the pump works nicely for footballs (having used it to inflate 35 of the things at the local kids football sessions) and and also for pools – the smoothness of the action helping to overcome the volume of pumps needed to inflate a pool – here’s a tip for you , use the electric pump for pools!!!