Silca Terra Floor Pump Review

Silca pumps, long a sign of Italian ingenuity and craftsmanship, became an American company a decade ago and has produced several impressive high-end offerings for the bicycle market. This pump looks squarely at the mountain bike market, although it retains the ability to pump to 120 psi.

Ease of Attachment/Detachment

The Terra uses an all-metal chuck with a threaded end that allows users to swap between Presta and Schrader modes manually. Simply unscrew the end of the chuck and turn it around to accommodate different valves. It's a high-quality feeling chuck with a nice finish, but it lacks the convenience of many of today's smart heads. In our garage, there are dozens of bikes, and we rarely pump the same type of valve more than a few times, so having to switch the head around each time we swapped bikes manually got old.

At 87cm, the hose isn't very long, which means inflating tires while on the bike stand was sometimes troublesome. The clamping force of the head onto a valve is excellent, and the chuck never leaked, even when positioned at an angle on the valve.

Stability

Silca brags about using a lightweight base and aluminum barrel, making the pump easy to travel with. This may be the case, but the lightweight base does a sub-optimal job of stabilizing the pump. Under normal use, this isn't much of a concern, but the Terra fell over in our garage far more than any other pump, even models with the same-sized base, possibly due to the heavier ash wood handle at the top. A dent in the lightweight aluminum barrel would render the device useless, so its lack of stability became a stress point. The base is a level tripod with the gauge occupying one of the legs that measures 9.5" across and 8" from the top of the gauge to the back of the legs. It lacks a grippy material on the footrests, but that never seemed to matter or affect its performance.

Inflation

As a two-stage pump built for higher volume tires, the Terra's best work is done in the first half of its gauge. This high-volume, low-pressure pump can still deliver the pressure you need for a road century, and we appreciate that versatility. Provided the chuck is set to the valve you're using, putting it on the valve is simple, and the locking aluminum lever gives you a secure feel as it clamps. The chuck has an air bleed valve on the body, making it easier to dial in your exact pressure.

Setting up a tubeless mountain bike tire set with the Terra was possible, but it required a bit more grunt from our testers. While not necessarily its primary function, inflating a road bike tire to 100 psi required 37 pumps. It's less than ideal for road pressures, but it pumps high enough that you don't need a second pump just for your road or gravel bike.

Accuracy

Our Silca Terra arrived with a gauge that was off by more than 15%. This made the ensuing mountain bike ride on new wheels and tires, with much higher pressure than I realized, a bit dicey. A quick email to customer service resulted in a new gauge arriving in the mail a few days later. The replacement gauge that Silca sent tied with the Bontrager TLR Flash Charger as the most accurate in our test, with a deviance of only 0.6 PSI.

Gauge

The two-stage Terra gauge prioritizes reading your lower-pressure mountain and gravel tires with broad spacing up to 30 psi, occupying half of the gauge face. Up to 30 psi, single psi indexes make it easy to dial in an exact pressure for your MTB tires. The pointed orange arrow passes over a bar and psi scale, letting you choose which units you're reading. Measuring 3" across, the gauge has an understated, elegant look. This is probably the most attractive and aesthetically pleasing gauge we've seen on a pump, but a great pump does more than look good. We found the contrast on the pump easy to read, but it's smaller than some of the other gauges we've tested, which affects its readability.

Value

At the higher end of the inflation price range, we expected a bit more from the Terra. It's a gorgeous work of art, but we tied ourselves in knots trying to justify the cost. With so many capable pumps on the market, justifying spending $160 on the Terra is beyond us. Silca's “lifetime warranty” covers the pump for .. seven years.

Conclusion