My once a day exercise today was to be a ride. I missed doing anything yesterday due to various family stuff so was needing the leg stretch. Barely 15 minutes in and my shittin' lezyne pump, that's been perfectly fine for donkeys, decides to repeatedly remove the valve core on my front wheel.

Much pissing around. Eventually limped home on an under inflated dirt wizard doing the weird, soft tyre steering thing (nothing, nothing, nothing, feck me I'm off that way sharpish).

Hey, I'm not dead and theres much worse in the world but gaaaaaah!!

That is all.

I think all owners of that pump have experienced that and either get a valve tool and remember to take it or get another pump.

Same happens with my Topeak RaceRocket does that same thing. If you don't screw it on tight enough, then it doesn't inflate, but screwing it on tight enough removed the valve core about 50% of the time. annoying!

Frustrating .... Had same problem a few times with a screw-on Topeak Rocket of some sort, then one day it decided to jam onto the core and the only way to remove it was to break the valve. POS design. I just use clamp-on pump heads now, thread-on extenders just seems unnecessary. Or, at least more potential faff then any benefits the extender tube provides. Got a couple of clamp-ons that I think have better airflow anyway - whether that's the fixing method or not isn't clear though.

It's ironic as I was reading a post by Stu poking fun at Lezyne's tendency to do this and thought "never happens to me, what's the big deal?". Got home and used an aged but still excellent Blackburn Mountain Morph, trouble is that it's a bit too big for my Wingnut.

So what clamp-ons (edit - shorter than the classic T handled Blackburn MM) for trouble free inflation then?

I've a couple of Topeaks: the mountain morph for the fat bike and the Mountain DA mini pump for the others. Main problem with the latter is that it is direct mount, i.e. no hose.

Hmm, you make me think I have the name wrong for that Blackburn. In fairness there's only an "M..." showing whilst the rest of the text is underneath wraps of duck tape

So what clamp-ons (edit - shorter than the classic T handled Blackburn MM) for trouble free inflation then?

https://www.evanscycles.com/fwe-micro-mtb-pump-EV196307

Call me biased, it'd be fair .. but I took one of these on the Tour Divide and other places where I needed to rely on a small pump to re-seat a TLR tyre. My standard pump for all my trips for a long time now. It moves air more easily/rapidly than 4 others of this size I tested (Spesh, Topeak, my old Blackburn and some other Taiwan brand) and I've seated WTB, 2Bliss and Maxxis TLRs with it at the trail side if the rim and tyre are reasonably prepped. I've had it a long time and it's been great. Made by a good company in Taiwan. Mine is 24cm long so not 100% sure it's the same as this one (looks like it tho) but the barrel, head clamp etc are the same and the main thing is it's not the 2-stage version we used to sell, the compact size sold well but it wasn't as effective.

Use schraeder valves, no more problem

I bought an Airace Mini Veloce after my Lezyne did the same thing to me and forced me to walk half my commute to get home a few years ago.
The Airace has a little hose with a thumb lock to attach to the valve so you get the best of both worlds.

. . . I've seated WTB, 2Bliss and Maxxis TLRs with it at the trail side if the rim and tyre are reasonably prepped.

Please elaborate on "suitably prepped". I've used diluted washing up liquid or wax based chain lube with varying (seems to depend on the tyre/rim combination) degrees of success. Do you have a super-smart-guaranteed-success solution?

While a WTB tyre on a WTB rim will seat with a gentle breeze other combinations require a little finesse. This usually involves building up the rim bed so the beads are making some seal before they hit the rim. On older non-tubeless rims the profile drops towards the spoke holes, this makes tyre fitting easy, you squeeze the tyre so the beads drop into this well. With tubeless this leads to air leaking, unless you can supply enough air to overcome the leakage you can have a hell of a time popping the beads onto the rim.

The answer is to fill the spoke well with foam tape before the sealing tape, this way you have a partial seal which allows a hand pump to push the beads outward and onto the rim, once there it’s golden.

My worst tubeless setup was on my ECR, 50mm rims, non tubeless tyres and only a track pump in rural north Devon, I resorted to duck tape, externally sealing the tyre to the rim, pumping like a bastard until it popped. If it had failed on exmoor I’d have never resealed it.

A good modern tubeless setup is as easy as a tube.

Oh I forgot, as an example I have some very nice WTB carbon rims, very much tubeless ready, why? Well they have virtually a flat rim bed. This obviously makes fitting tyres an utter utter illegitimate bastard son of a leper’s colonies whore, but once you actually get them into the rim you can air them up with a micro pump.

A few years ago I left my track pump and a bag with mini pumps at a B&B in Wales. The following weekend wifey and I were off to France to ride the Ardechoise so I hastily ordered a Lezyne track pump and a couple of mini's. First test of the track pump was at a campsite in France, followed by testing both of the mini's. Thank fack I'd packed some CO2.

The mini pumps were taken by a mate, I did explain the problem. For the track pump I bought a Lezyne push on head. Now, anything that gets delivered with 6 spare washers that hold the head on isn't going to be good. In the end I cut the end of the pump off and fitted a Topeak push on chuck.

They're beautifully made pumps that will leave you stranded.

Al wrote: ↑Fri Mar 27, 2020 5:56 pm I bought an Airace Mini Veloce after my Lezyne did the same thing to me and forced me to walk half my commute to get home a few years ago.
The Airace has a little hose with a thumb lock to attach to the valve so you get the best of both worlds.

My Google.fu is failing me, where did you get that from (on the www)?

mfezela wrote: ↑Fri Mar 27, 2020 8:42 pm

. . . I've seated WTB, 2Bliss and Maxxis TLRs with it at the trail side if the rim and tyre are reasonably prepped.

Please elaborate on "suitably prepped". I've used diluted washing up liquid or wax based chain lube with varying (seems to depend on the tyre/rim combination) degrees of success. Do you have a super-smart-guaranteed-success solution?

Not super smart, just clean old sealant off, check and re-fit tyres before a trip so they're less gunky, and use the 'half-seated' pull-on trick so that a small pump can put out more air than the tyre leaks before beginning to seat. Simple enough to do with a tyre lever and a bit of practice. Hard to describe, would need to video. Will try to find one as I'm sure someone will have done one. It's not 100% guaranteed to work and not always fast but if I have time, preferable to popping a tube in. I tend to save the tube for unfixably holed tyres.

BigdummySteve wrote: ↑Fri Mar 27, 2020 10:01 pm This obviously makes fitting tyres an utter utter illegitimate bastard son of a leper’s colonies whore

Steve. Totally oarsome ... I had to change the rear tyre on my Brompton a few weeks ago. In my suit. In the change room at the office. Which was hot and steamy (Reg ... NO!!! Leave it alone) It took me over an hour and I struggled to describe to others what it was like. By the time I had it done, I'd bent six of the office spoons (using them as levers) and was drenched in a weird combination of sweat, rage, shame and indignation. Now I know how to describe the feeling. Cheers fella.

Oddly, when I did get it fitted, I pumped it up with my Leyzne mini pump, which has served me well for years.

Cheeky Monkey wrote: ↑Sat Mar 28, 2020 3:47 pm

Al wrote: ↑Fri Mar 27, 2020 5:56 pm I bought an Airace Mini Veloce after my Lezyne did the same thing to me and forced me to walk half my commute to get home a few years ago.
The Airace has a little hose with a thumb lock to attach to the valve so you get the best of both worlds.

My Google.fu is failing me, where did you get that from (on the www)?

I’ve had It a few years now so not sure I can remember.
I could only see them on US eBay when I had a quick look:
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre ... 2145274728

Al wrote: ↑Sat Mar 28, 2020 5:40 pm

Cheeky Monkey wrote: ↑Sat Mar 28, 2020 3:47 pm

Al wrote: ↑Fri Mar 27, 2020 5:56 pm I bought an Airace Mini Veloce after my Lezyne did the same thing to me and forced me to walk half my commute to get home a few years ago.
The Airace has a little hose with a thumb lock to attach to the valve so you get the best of both worlds.

My Google.fu is failing me, where did you get that from (on the www)?

I’ve had It a few years now so not sure I can remember.
I could only see them on US eBay when I had a quick look:
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre ... 2145274728

Not just my Google fu then

Fingers crossed James' suggestion is a good one for me.