TransAm Gear: Silca

When Josh Poertner took over Silca in 2013, it seemed an unusual move for the technical director of Zipp to move from cutting edge wheels to pumps…. But when the Super Pista Ultimate pump was released, it started to make sense. This is a product done the right way – obsessively engineered, made in the US, and designed to last forever and be fully serviceable. I got one of the first batch of those pumps, which is in daily use in the EC shop. And have since had several Silca floor pumps and frame pumps painted to match for customer bikes.

In looking for partners for the TransAm, Silca was one of the first I reached out to. Keeping the tires inflated and at the correct pressure was going to be important for the best efficiency. Josh had hoped that the new Tattico Bluetooth pump would have been ready for the race – as this connects to a mobile device to give an accurate pressure reading, it would have been perfect for carrying minimal kit. Unfortunately it wasn’t quite finished, so I used the regular Tattico, which fitted nicely alongside the bottle cage on the bike.

Additionally Josh set me up with high quality valve stems and the T-Ratchet + Ti-Torque kit, which gave me a compact multitool with a built in torque wrench.

With my truncated race, I did not have need to use any tools during the event, but both the pump and toolkit have performed perfectly since :-

Many thanks to Josh and Silca for their support, looking forward to seeing what they come up with next! And if you want to understand more about where the tire meets the road, check out Silca’s Blog – Josh’s post about his time with Zipp preparing for Paris-Roubaix is particularly interesting.