Silca Elettrico Ultimate Inflator - Impressive performance from a premium product

Electric bike pumps are a recent phenomenon and a success story. In the space of just a few short years, they have gone from seeming a bit unnecessary to total acceptance and are fairly commonplace now on my group rides.

Whilst most pumps of this type concentrate, understandably, on compactness and low weight, the Silca Elettrico Ultimate Inflator majors on power and capacity. Silca claims that it is the equivalent of carrying nine CO2 canisters (presumably the 16g type), making it capable of pumping up multiple road or gravel tyres on one charge.

Matt Ischt-Barnard recently conducted a thorough group test of various electric pumps, so I used his test parameters when evaluating the Silca Elettrico Ultimate Inflator.

Construction

In the box is the pump, hose, needle adaptor (for footballs etc), waterproof carry case, USB-C charging cable and a spare O-ring.

It’s quite a chunky unit, measuring 81mm x 60mm x 32mm, plus the connector hose, and it weighs 240g. It looks quite purposeful, with grey, finned sides and an aluminium construction, and, as with most things made by Silca, it is beautifully crafted.

Natively, the pump works on Presta valves, but it is compatible with Silca’s Schraeder chuck, should you need it.

The ride

First off, some facts and figures from my tests.

Matt tested and timed his pumps by inflating a 700 x 30c road tyre - the Elettrico Ultimate Inflator smashed this test, completing it in 22 seconds and beating all the on-bike pumps by a significant margin (the Cycplus AS2 Pro was the fastest in 37 seconds). Only two of the workshop pumps bettered the Silca, and then only by a few seconds.

The Elettrico Ultimate Inflator also beat all of the group test pumps in terms of number of inflations per charge. I managed to inflate my 700 x 30c road tyre 13 times from one charge and my 700 x 45c gravel tyre to 35psi 9 times. Very impressive.

Recharging takes less than an hour via a USB-C cable.

Of course, all of this power and battery life does not come without consequences, and that consequence is the unit’s size and weight. At 239g, it is heavier than most of the other electric pumps tested, and larger too, but it does still fit in my bottle cage tool tub and would easily slot into most saddlebags. It could be carried in a jersey pocket, but the weight and sharp edges might make it quite uncomfortable.

For reference, it weighs less than four 16g CO2 cartridges plus an inflator (250g) and 25g less than my mini pump, inflator and three canisters (265g).

Using the Elettrico Ultimate Inflator couldn’t be simpler, and within a few seconds of opening the box, I was busy blowing up my tyres - press and hold the On button, adjust the psi using the + and - buttons, screw it on the valve and press the On button again. I didn’t read the instructions tut, tut.

Like all these devices, it's quite loud and vibrates in the hand, and it gets quite warm too, although it was still holdable after three consecutive full inflations. The hose and valve get the warmest, and this does mean that it is not recommended for use with TPU tubes that have plastic valve stems.

As a cyclist, using a track pump is about the only upper-body exercise I do, and I had always been a bit sceptical about adding yet another battery-operated device to my cycling kit (gears, power meter, lights, computer, heart rate strap - cycling used to be such a simple hobby!). However, I have been seduced by the Elettrico Ultimate Inflator’s speed and convenience, pushing exactly the right amount of air into my tyres before a ride in just a few seconds, and all without troubling my triceps.

I have mainly used it as a workshop tool, preferring to carry just a mini-pump or single CO2 on local rides for weight and space reasons. However, I took the Elettrico on a weekend trip round the Yorkshire Wolds with my wife, and used it to top up a leaky tubeless set-up on day 2, and it was excellent on a European cycling holiday too.

Whilst it might be bigger and heavier than a mini-pump, it is a lot smaller and lighter than a track pump, so I packed the Elettrico Ultimate Inflator in my hand luggage for a week-long ride around Slovenia. It was ideal for building the bikes up after the flight and also for monitoring tyre pressures as the weekend went on; Silca claims that it is accurate to within 1%. With its huge battery life, I didn’t need to charge it all week.

I did manage to successfully seat a tubeless tyre with the Elettrico Ultimate Inflator, but only the one, and it was no match for my trusty Airshot - it just doesn’t dump air rapidly enough to snap the bead onto the rim in most cases.

It's worth noting that the pump is limited to a maximum of 100psi. In this age of wider tyres and tubeless setups, this shouldn't be an issue for many riders, but if you still like to run 23mm tyres at 120psi, then the Silca won't work for you.

Value and conclusion

Not only is the Elettrico Ultimate Inflator larger and heavier than most of its rivals, it is also more expensive at £150 / $159. However, Silca has never troubled itself with making cheap products; this is the brand with a £500 / $509 track pump in its portfolio, so the premium over the other options is not unreasonable given its vastly superior performance, capacity and speed.

It is a bit less portable than many of the other electric pumps available, and perhaps 80-100g more than I’d like it to be, but that is a direct consequence of its battery capacity. Personally, I would trade a few inflations for a smaller, lighter unit - Silca does make the Elettrico Micro Inflator to fill this niche, but that loses the LCD screen and programmable pressure too.

I would also like the form factor to be a bit more forgiving, with fewer sharp edges and corners, so that it could be carried more comfortably.

The Elettrico Ultimate Inflator is best suited to workshop use, long trips or group rides when multiple inflations are a probability, rather than solo local rides.