The siren sound of carbon fiber is back this week, and unfortunately it is permeating the offices of Axiom. We singled out the components manufacturer last week for making a carbon fiber rack that is over six times the cost of the aluminum version while carrying only half as much and weighing more.
Axiom is back this week as our nominee for Dumbest Product of the Week with more carbon fiber madness in the form of their Kompress Air Pro Carbon floor pump. Once again, Axiom offers a perfectly fine looking aluminum version of this pump, this time for half the price. I will commend them for actually making the carbon version lighter this time, but at a scant 5 gram weight difference (1/100th of a pound for all you metric Luddites), it seems hardly worth the trouble of making. Of course, this completely ignores that fact the it is a FLOOR pump, which means you are never carrying this thing on a bike or really in any way other than across the garage. So why give a flip about weight?
Well, Axiom has got an answer. They say that the pump has “Serious ‘BLING-BLING’ factor.” Paying $150 for a pump that, let’s be honest here is going to be sitting between the garden tools and your Christmas decorations collecting dust, is more like Dumb-Dumb. I don’t think floor pumps give you street credit otherwise we’d be seeing more of this:
No, in the cycling world your only real credibility in the end comes from your legs, and no amount of carbon makes the same statement as dropping someone on a climb.
Enjoy your weekend, and get out and ride your bike.
Read the previous week’s Dumbest Product of the Week.
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on Aug 5th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
5 grams does not equal 1/10 of a pound, more like 1/100th.
on Aug 6th, 2009 at 12:01 am
John,
You are correct, my decimal was off by 1 place.