Blackburn Piston 4 track pump review

If you’re looking for a track pump to last you for ever, the Blackburn Piston 4 could be the one

Blackburn Piston 4 track pump
(Image credit: Cycling Studio)
Cycling Weekly Verdict

A quality pump with great features, that’s easy to use and will fulfil all your future pumping needs.

Reasons to buy
  • +

    Rock solid build

  • +

    Steel barrel and base

  • +

    Lifetime warranty

  • +

Reasons to avoid
  • -

    Slightly difficult to engage the head on presta valves

  • -

    Expensive

You can trust Cycling Weekly. Our team of experts put in hard miles testing cycling tech and will always share honest, unbiased advice to help you choose. Find out more about how we test.

The new Blackburn Piston 4 track pump does everything you’d want a top notch pump to do. That starts with a large, easy-to-read gauge. Too often pumps’ gauges are small and somewhere down near your feet. But the Piston 4’s is right up there at the top of the barrel, clearly marked in psi and bar and around 7.5cm across. So it’s dead easy to see what pressure you’ve reached.

The Piston 4 stands just under 68cm tall, so its steel barrel is long and there’s plenty of length to the pump stroke, making for easy inflation to high pressure.

Blackburn Piston 4 track pump

Pump head is substantial and the top mounted gauge is easy to read
(Image credit: Cycling Studio)

The barrel is securely bolted to a large steel baseplate too, so the pump is stable even on uneven ground. You get a wide cylindrical plastic handle, which also makes for comfortable, easy pumping. Blackburn quotes a maximum pressure of 220psi/15 bar if you like a firm ride.

>>> The best track pumps for 2017

I like the way that the metre-long long hose loops around a peg at the base of the pump and into a clip at the top, for easy stowage. There’s also a groove in the handle you can use if you want to keep the hose tidy without stowing it away completely. Being top mounted the hose is easy to attach to a valve on a bike in a workstand too.

Blackburn’s pump head is substantial and has a robust metal locking lever. It works with both presta and schrader valves and includes a pressure release button. But I did find that it needed a firm push to get it fully engaged on presta valves, so that it worked effectively.

>>> Five best mini pumps

Although it’s pricy, the Blackburn Piston 4 feels like a pump that will last forever and that’s backed up by Blackburn’s lifetime warranty.

Thank you for reading 20 articles this month* Join now for unlimited access

Enjoy your first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

*Read 5 free articles per month without a subscription

Join now for unlimited access

Try first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

Paul Norman

Paul started writing for Cycling Weekly in 2015, covering cycling tech, new bikes and product testing. Since then, he’s reviewed hundreds of bikes and thousands of other pieces of cycling equipment for the magazine and the Cycling Weekly website.

He’s been cycling for a lot longer than that though and his travels by bike have taken him all around Europe and to California. He’s been riding gravel since before gravel bikes existed too, riding a cyclocross bike through the Chilterns and along the South Downs.