CYCPLUS Electric Review

The CYPLUS Electric offers an incredible value considering that it's just a bit more expensive than some of the cheapest models we've tested and takes all the huffing and puffing out of pumping up your bike tires. As long as you're willing to maintain a sensitive piece of equipment that's more affected by elemental extremes, this pump presents a bold, contemporary, and extremely easy-to-use option for you.

Performance Comparison

Ease of Use

The sheer simplicity of this pump is part of its genius, but it also creates some issues to troubleshoot. The short, 14.5cm hose stores conveniently in the pump body. It doesn't have any sort of latch, which concerned us when we strapped this pump to our bike frame via the provided frame mount and hit the trail. But with the pump mounted right-side up and held securely by the Velcro strap, we didn't have any issue with the hose or the pump coming loose. Because the hose is so short, the pump dangles from the valve stem if using a bike stand or with the bike turned upside down. We allowed the pump to vibrate against our frame, which, over time, we figured could cause some slight damage to either one or both. If you don't like that, you'll be forced to hold the pump. Alternatively, and more simply, you can just hold your bike up with the valve stem rotated toward the ground and just let the pump sit on the ground as its little motor inflates your tire.

The nozzle at the end of the hose has two parts. The Presta adapter screws into the Schrader adapter. To connect to the latter, you simply unscrew (and be sure to keep track of) the tiny metal Presta chuck. This proved problematic, as we failed to track this piece well enough during testing. Fortunately, the other contender's metal chuck was interchangeable and allowed us to finish the rounds of testing. Both adapters are super simple to connect by just screwing them on, although we found that bearing that allows this adapter to rotate separately from the hose is not high quality. This resulted in the entire hose and pump rotating as we screwed it on, which wasn't a huge issue, but an area that we definitely feel leaves room for improvement.

When it comes time to inflate, the operation is intuitive and easy. You use the +/- buttons to set your desired PSI, with a max of 150. Then hit start (the power button) and supervise as this little machine happily performs its task. When the set pressure is reached, the pump turns off, and you can unscrew the valve attachment and store it for the next time you need it.

When it comes to tools that rely on batteries for their function, we're often wary. After all, if your pump fails to perform or even turn on when you need it the most, it is an epic waste of money. And worst yet, it can leave you stranded. We did find the battery on the CYPLUS to last much longer than the other e-pump we tested. It will inflate many bike tires off a full charge before it quits on you, and this did help build some trust in its reliability. And if you're technologically savvy enough to carry backcountry solar panels or power banks with you when you're off the grid, then you may be more equipped to carry this tool, knowing that if it dies, you have the power to bring it back to life.

Lastly, we liked that this pump comes with a soft carrying case so you can toss it in your glove box or day bag. As we mentioned, it also comes with a frame mount that holds the pump securely if you take it on the trail. Just be wary that any piece of equipment with internal wires may be damaged by too much vibration or jarring.

Inflation

To assess this metric for the mini electric compressor pumps, we decided to use a stopwatch since there was no manual pumping to be done and, thus, no strokes to count. We inflated both 2.1" x 26" and 2.3" x 29" MTB tires multiple times with both low and full battery and did the same with our 700x25c road bike tire. We found this pump to consistently outperform the competition.

When the battery is full, this pump has a lot of juice. The pump becomes a bit weaker as the battery gets low, which we did find to affect the inflation rate. This pump took two minutes and 47 seconds to inflate our 2.3" MTB tire to 35 PSI. At low battery, it did take slightly longer to bring the same tire to the same pressure, at 2:56. Although the other competitor consistently performed at the same inflation rate despite the battery status, even when affected by low battery, the CYPLUS still comes out on top.

We found the case to be the same with our high-pressure, low-volume road bike tire. It only took the CYPLUS 1:17 to inflate the tire to 100 PSI at full battery and 1:34 with a low battery. Both these times were below the consistent inflation rate of the competition.

Stability

When talking about stability, comparing these small compact compressors to large floor pumps is like comparing apples and oranges, so we had to debate how we would treat this metric.

At the end of the day, we chose to objectively gauge whether or not the pump was stable during operation. Does the movement affect the pumping performance? Does it cause the valve to leak? We stressed this hose and connections in all manner of directions and configurations, and not once did the pump notice. It just kept doing its thing and shut off when finished. Because of this, this pump made high marks in stability, although we take this with a grain of salt when comparing it to the floor pumps.

Accuracy

Although the CYPLUS Electric has a simple-to-use and easy-to-read gauge, it wasn't the most accurate when put to our highly sensitive accuracy test. That said, we felt that it was accurate enough to rely on.

When compared to our highly sensitive digital gauge, this pump was consistently a couple PSI high at 20, 50, and 100 PSI. In the grand scheme, we were very comfortable with these margins. At 100 PSI, you won't notice an extra two PSI. At 20, it could certainly be more noticeable, but when you're talking about bike tires, it's better to be a few PSI high than it is to be low.

Should You Buy the CYPLUS Electric?

This pump is affordable and super easy to operate. The ease of use borders on laziness, and you'll be pondering other tasks to go complete as this pump does all the work to inflate any tire you put it up against. The only catch is that you'll need to baby this pump a bit compared to old-fashioned plungers. Rechargeable batteries are sensitive to extremes in temperature and may fail you when you need them most. That said, if you're an intrepid, contemporary gearhead, you may already have the tools to recharge this pump when it dies in the backcountry.

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