The idea of buying an air compressor has come across my mind a few times. With three of my personal bikes being tubeless and a few other review bikes in queue also running tubeless, there’s a lot of tire and wheel swapping happening in the office. Bikes come in with a cyclocross tire and I immediately put on WTB Nanos. MTB tires fall victim to Austin’s craggy limestone and need replacing. Just about every few days, I was finding myself heading to Mellow Johnny’s to get tires put on. While I love giving them the business, I’d rather do that shit myself…

Back to the air compressor conundrum. I love those things, but they’re load and you can’t toss them in the back of a pickup truck or race vehicle with ease. When Bontrager came out with the FLASH Charger floor pump I remember thinking “oh, neat” before scrambling back out on the road for a few weeks. It wasn’t until recently that I bit the bullet and bought one.

At $120, it’s a bit more money than a low-end air compressor, but it uses no electricity, is much more quiet and honestly, seats up tires just as easy…

It also looks really damn nice.

But form must at least back up function at some capacity and the FLASH Charger does just that. Simply drop the red handle and start pumping. It takes about 30 pumps to build up enough pressure to do the job, depending on the rim and tire. While Andre is pumping the chamber up, let’s take a look at what we’re working with here.

To make things easy, we prefer to use Stan’s. Andre insists on removing his shoes when he comes to the office.

Industry 9 hubs to Velocity Blunt SS rims are a great, affordable MTB wheelset. Wanna see more? Check out Velocity for more information.

While the Maxxis Ardent gumwall tires aren’t spec’d to be tubeless compatible, we’ve been using them for months with no issues. I’m not sold on the ride quality of these tires, but they’re hella photogenic… ;-)

Back to pumping… You done yet, Andre?

You can go higher, but we found this works just fine.

It sometimes takes two FLASHs to get the tire to seat.

But it works!

To be honest, these tires in particular are a bit tricky to initially set up with a compressor, but they were a one-hit wonder with the FLASH charger. All it took was a little wrist magic to rotate the sealant around and create a good seal.

For a 29r wheel to set up like this in no time, I’m impressed. A cyclocross tire is even easier and while I’ve yet to try it for a road tire, I’d imagine it’d be pretty easy. I’ve heard of people using these pumps for fatbikes as well. If anyone has experience with that, feel free to chime in. Right now, I’m impressed with how easy it was to set up these wheels. Bottom line: this pump makes setting tubeless tires up in your home a cinch.

The FLASH charger retails for around $120 and is available (or it damn well should be) at your local Bontrager dealer.