Review – Audew Portable Hand Pump/Bike Pump

For this review, I will be covering the Audew portable hand pump, which works great for bicycles as well as pretty much anything else that needs to be pumped up or filled the conventional way.s

In the interest of transparency, I was contacted directly by Audew and offeredIMG_6508 this product for review, and I agreed with the understanding that it will be a totally unbiased, honest review and they agreed.

I was pleasantly surprised that upon opening the shipping package that the pump was contained in a nice little black cloth bag with snaps on the top (you can see it in the pic here).  The bag contained the pump, a tire patch kit contained glueless patches, and a couple of tire tube caps (for Schrader-type valves).  Attached to the pump is a little plastic container that contains a metal inflator needle and a larger diameter plastic inflator needle for inflating various balls, like footballs, soccer balls, etc.  There’s also a small ‘manual’ or one-piece of stiff paper with instructions for use and lubrication.

The first thing I noticed is that the tire pump looks really good, higher-end – it has a metal tube; steel according to the specs on Amazon though the Audew website mentions aluminum (I believe that it is aluminum), and has thick hoses that seem to be secured well, a heavy plastic foot as well as the handle and other parts, and a nice heavy-duty gauge. All hoses have screw-in connectors so theoretically you could replace a hose or connector if needed I suppose, or at least tighten these down if the connectors loosen. 

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Taking a look at the patch kit; it comes in a plastic container and has a number of self-adhesive patches and a bit of sandpaper for cleaning the tube.  These seem to be standard as are the valve caps.  A quick test of one of the valve caps on a lawn tractor wagon tire went fine, threads and small seal inside the cap just like most any valve cap of that sort.

The hose when not in use easily stows against the pump by snapping it into holders on either side of the upper part of the tube, wrapping up and over in an inverted-U over the handle.


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The first thing you notice when getting set to pump up a tire or fill something is that the head has a receptacle for both Schrader and Presta valves.  Schrader is like what your car has and many MTB and hybrid bikes, while Presta is what most road bikes have.

I think this dual idea works better than the single head pumps that accept both – there always seems to be a lot of wear and tear and sometimes eventual air leakage – especially if you like to check your tires before each ride, and you ride a lot.  Adapters are fine but just being able to stick the right connection on without messing about with it is probably simpler and less-error prone, and less prone to wear and breakage.

Like many tire pumps there is a handle on top of the inflator head that tightens the head onto the valve.

IMG_6524Over the time period of testing (a month, give or take) I pumped up/checked tires on three road bikes, two hybrids, a mountain bike, front and back lawn tractor tires, tubeless lawn wagon tires, and car and SUV tires. 

For the Schrader valves, it worked flawlessly, was easy to get on and off, and stayed put while it was on.

For the Presta valves, it was just as easy to get on and stay on, but it was a bit harder to get it off the Presta valve after the handle was opened and I occasionally lost some air and had to recheck.  After a week I learned the problem – I was pushing the head too far onto the Presta valve – and this kind of depended on the size of the valve stem.  On shorter ones, it wasn’t a problem but on larger ones I was pushing it way too far onto the valve stem – physically pushing it down as far as it would go.  This was counterproductive and unnecessary so once I learned that all that I needed to do was set it onto the valve and press the handle to tighten it, it came off perfectly and without any appreciable loss of air.  Over time the tightness of pushing it on too far has lessened and I don’t have to think about how far I am pressing it on.  My guess is this was just a little idiosyncrasy of the manufacturing process and probably doesn’t happen normally on this model.

I also tested the metal needle inflator on a football and the plastic needle sort of thing on a Yoga ball and it worked just fine.

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The handle shaft is long and the tube is about the same size as other pumps but it seems to be very well sealed with a high volume of air being pumped through for each push of the handle.  Some pumps feel almost as if you are losing a little pressure and with this there doesn’t seem to be any of that.

None of our bike tires need to be inflated to a hundred and ten pounds PSI but temporarily for testing purposes that pressure was a good test as it lies in the middle of the range of the gauge and the pump.  A few quick tests on a couple of bike tires were quick and moderately easy – at that pressure there is a bit of muscle involved in pushing down on the handle, as is expected.  And there was no leakage internally in the pump whether the handle was left up or fully down under one ten pounds of pressure.  

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As you can see in the pics above it fits fine on both long valve stems and very, very short ones.

The handle is easy to lift when releasing the inflater head, even under a lot of pressure.  And unlike some pumps closing the handle doesn’t produce a painful snap that can catch your fingers, and the space at the end of the handle where it gently curves up keeps your fingers safe even if you did snap it down somewhat hard.

One of the important things is the gauge.  The gauge is really nice quality and isn’t a cheapo for sure.  Pressure is shown both in PSI and Bars.

I tested the gauge, comparing it to a standalone high quality tire gauge as well as the gauge on a pump with a known good gauge accuracy.  Additionally for ‘low’ pressure (30-40 pound range), I tested it with a manual car tire gauge. 

Accuracy is very good, within what I consider my own margin of errors – both for high pressure as well as lower pressures.

IMG_6522The tube opens (with the removal of a few screws) so that the inner pump section can be lubed, which is nice and definitely will significantly increase the life of the pump, as well as its ability to pump at high pressure.

So, all in all, a nice quality air pump so far, no real issues and it works fine for any tire I have used it on and does its job as it should.

So if you are in the market for a nice little general-purpose or bike pump this may fit the ticket – Audew portable hand pump

Audew is also giving visitors to this blog 20% off if you buy this before the 20th – 10% off Code: LJGGIGO3.

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Marc M

I am a web developer and fitness geek, but I have a heck of a lot of differing interests.  Biking, the Internet, technology, movies, fitness, running and walking and hiking, science fiction, photography, graphics, WordPress, flying and aircrafts, pets and animals, history, and much more.  I like to stay very fit but I don’t mind sitting at my computer for work and play either.  I live in upstate New York (that’s far from New York City) in a rural area, yet close to a small city, with my beautiful awesome wife, a bunch of beloved cats and dogs and chickens in a very old multi-century house.

2 Comments:

  1. Great photos – very clear and helpful. My only curious question is whether the gauge can pick up the very low pressure of a fat bike tire. I suspect this wouldn’t be a problem. The quality of the pump is impressive. Many thanks for the review.

    • I checked it down to around ten pounds, which is what the lawn tractor tire uses and the tire gauges in general were the same, within a few pounds. I believe the accuracy of the gauge is higher at high pressure but I can’t 100% vouch for my tire gauge nor my other pump’s gauge at that low of a pressure either.

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