Keeping your motorcycle tyre pressures correct is crucial to keeping your bike handling well. When down on pressure and you can really notice the handling go down hill, with cornering suddenly feeling unnatural and tyres squaring off faster. As such every biker needs a good pump they can rely on to keep tyre pressures on spec at all times. About a year ago I picked up this Ring analogue air pump from Screwfix for just under £20 quid and has since been put to good use in that time. Read more to find out my final verdict after a year of use.
This Analogue model is the cheapest tyre inflator in the Ring range and so has very simple and basic features. Key is the analogue pressure dial (as opposed to an LCD digital read out), a bit old school perhaps but my eye sight in plenty good enough to read the dial and I couldn’t personally see the point of paying an extra £20 for a pretty digital read out of pressure. Other more expensive models include a built in LED torch light which could possibly be useful if you’re pumping tyres up in the dark, but otherwise they all have same standard inflating spec.
In use, this Ring tyre pump is a pretty standard, a small square-ish box, long 3m lead with 12V fag lighter socket and a half metre airline, both of which wrap up neatly into the main unit for packing away. Attaching the airline to a tyre valve is where things first seem a bit ill thought out. The end of the airline has a screw fit adaptor, however it’s perfectly straight making it tricky to attach to a motorcycle tyre valve sat between two discs or sprocket – a right angle adaptor would be much preferred. Fine for use of on the car, but a recipe for dirty, oil hands on the bike.
Additionally, the end that you rotate to screw onto the valve quickly got stiff and tricky to turn, especially if he airline wasn’t 100% straight up from valve. Again, a right angle adaptor or valve would help here. Some WD40 also helped, but I still always found myself losing loads of air trying to screw it on and off. Very annoying after carefully filling to correct pressure you need.
Long term this pump hasn’t held up as well as hoped. After a year of use the pump now intermittently fails to pump beyond a certain pressure. It continues to run, but the gauge shows no further pressure increase and often a gradual decrease! To fail like this after a year is pretty disappointing. Maybe a bad example, but it certainly put me off another Ring pump.
Rating: 1/5
One reply on “Ring Analogue Air Compressor Pump Long Term Review”
I have the digital Ring tyre inflator, I do like the fact you set the desired pressure and the pump takes care of it. I’ve had mine for a little over five years and it’s still working fine. Having said that I do find carrying a 12v battery around to power it from a pain. So I’ve bought a battery powered tyre inflator from Lidl, whose tools I find to be good quality. Only had it a few months but all good so far.