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Bontrager Dual Charger floor pump review

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Liam Mercer's picture

Liam Mercer

Since beginning his mountain biking career while working as a resort photographer in Greece in 2014, Liam became a freelance contributor at off.road.cc in 2019. From there, he’s climbed the journalism job ladder from staff writer to deputy technical editor, now finding his place as technical editor.

Partial to the odd enduro race, heart rate-raising efforts on slim-tyred cross-country bikes, hell-for-leather e-MTB blasts or even casual gravel jaunts, there’s not a corner of off-road cycling where Liam fears to tread. With more than 40 bike reviews under his belt and hundreds more on MTB, e-MTB and gravel parts and accessories, Liam’s expertise continues to be cemented and respected by the industry.

Product reviews

The Dual Charger is Bontrager's offering to the floor pump market. The high volume/high-pressure switch makes the Dual Charger a versatile choice if you have a mountain bike and a road rig in the shed but it's a touch pricier than other well-established competitors.

With its almost complete steel construction, the Dual Charger is built to last. Its stanchion is pretty thick as well which offers a really confident action and the tapered plastic handle fits nicely in the hand.

Bontrager has been clever with their use of space. Found on either side of the handle are two white caps that can be removed. One is home to a needle and an expander attachment, the other lets you access a space which is ripe for storage.

Bontrager Dual Charger Handle.jpg

The gauge on this pump is massive. It's hard to miss with it's contrasting white face and the details are super clear. It also has a good indicator of when you should be using the high pressure/high volume switch, indicated by the blue and red portions. 

Bontrager Dual Charger Gauge.jpg

The large, grip taped base is nice and stable. It's also where you will find the high pressure/low volume switch which operates with a decent clunk. By the gauge is also a bleed valve which is a welcome addition. With the bleed valve, you don't need to detach the head to let out some pressure from your tyre which is great, it is a very slow bleed, however.

Bontrager Dual Charger Valve.jpg

The auto-select head is made out of a similar plastic to the handle. But in this case, it, unfortunately, feels a little weak. If anything were to fail on this otherwise well-made pump, it would be the head. Issues aside it works exactly how you would expect. I've had no issues attaching this head to valves as I have had with other automatically selecting heads.

The pump itself is a very easy unit to use as touched on before. The action is nice and smooth and it shows no sign of tipping or wobble during use. I've managed to seat a number tubeless tyres on a number of rims without an issue thanks to its high volume but the action does stiffen as it nears full compression, so it does require a smidge of elbow grease to get particularly stubborn tyres seated.

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