Tires leak air. Even the best tires out there do it slowly, and for those who ride often, they’ll at least have to put a few PSI back in their tires every now and then. And, for those who ride often and burn through tires, there’s a good chance it will get old taking the bike into the local shop to mount a new set of tubeless tires every time.
In short, a pump like the Lezyne Pressure Over Drive is very practical to have around. The Pressure Over Drive analog pump is a floor pump with a secondary chamber that can be pressurized to seat tubeless tires. The construction of the pump feels weighty and solid and is made from steel and aluminum, with a wooden handle up top. The hose is made from braided, reinforced nylon.
At the base of the pump is a lever and by flipping it up, the secondary chamber can be pressurized to seat a tubeless tire. With the hose connected to a valve, drop the lever down to the floor, and the pump will release the compressed air in a single blast, helping to seat tubeless tires. Lezyne recommends pressurizing it to about 150psi.
Lezyne’s ABS1 chuck sits at the tail end of the hose and has some clever features. Unthread the chuck and flip it to one side or the other for Presta or Schrader valves. On the back, there’s a little valve-core wrench, and on the side of the chuck is a pressure release valve, but it only releases pressure from the hose, and not from the tire itself to adjust in the event of overinflation. For the most part, I really like the Over Drive, but we never hit a perfect stride.
What I like about the Lezyne pump is that the action of it feels smooth and efficient. The handle feels consistent pushing into the stroke and every pump allows for quite a bit of airflow. For high volume mountain bike tires, it’s a great match.
The secondary chamber is easy to use too, and I had an easy time all summer using it to seat tubeless tires. I didn’t test any heavy downhill tires this summer, but it snapped all my aggressive trail and enduro tires into place without any issues, and that was usually after inflating the chamber to between 100-120psi.
There were a few things I wasn’t a fan of though. The first is that the pump won’t tell you what the tire pressure is after threading the chuck on. The dial still sits at zero. So, if you normally ride with the rear tire at 25psi, and wanted to double-check before a ride, well it would be hard to tell how much air needs to be added, especially if the tire were sitting at 22/23psi. The dial isn’t going to exceed 25psi, but you’re basically watching it slowly rise from 0 until the desired pressure, even if the tire has 15/20/22psi. Maybe it’s just me, but I like to keep track of those things.
Lezyne has a note about this on their website: if the pump is being used as a “regular pump” the chamber has to fill first and reach the same pressure as the tire before it further inflates.
After reaching the desired pressure, the hose has been pressurized and whooshes out air after unthreading, like a shock pump would, but amplified. Not a big deal, but it made me second guess my pressures a few times. I spoke with Lezyne about it, and they recommended hitting either the pressure release button on the side of the chuck to release it before unthreading the chuck, or kicking the foot lever up to keep the air pressure in.
The ABS1 chuck can also be less intuitive than expected. Lezyne says that the thread-on chuck has a more secure fit than levered clamping chucks, but occasionally the problem is that there’s too much threading force on the entire valve or valve core, twisting the seal loose on the valve, or unseating the valve core. I appreciate the secure fit, but it doesn’t always feel like the most user-friendly design.
Closing thoughts
As a tubeless seating device, the Lezyne Over Drive pump works great. It’s easy to use and works as intended. As an everyday pump, it also works well, mostly. The pump is smooth and efficient and fills tires up quickly, but the chuck could be polarizing. MSRP: $140, available at Amazon.
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