Rene Herse NUDA Ultralight Carbon Minipump Review

By Stan Purdum

Hot

• Easy to connect to and disconnect from Presta valves without air pressure loss
• Super light weight
• Able to pump tires to satisfactory level with 250 stokes
• Clips included for mounting beside water bottle cage
• Nozzle cover keeps road-sprayed debris out of nozzle 

Not

• Does not work for Shrader valves

Price: $39

Available here: www.renehersecycles.com/shop/equipment/tools/nuda-ultralight-carbon-minipump/

How obtained: Sample from Rene Herse company

RBR Advertiser: No

Those of you who regularly read my scribbles in this space may remember that a few weeks ago, when I was answering the question “How much air pressure am I losing when detaching my bike tire pump?” I explained that I dislike minipumps with nozzles that screw onto a Presta valve because I often lose some (or even all) of the air when unscrewing the nozzle. In short, I find the screw-on type nozzle too fiddly to be reliable at the roadside.

It happens, however, that the Rene Herse company, a maker of bicycle tires and components, recently sent me their NUDA Ultralight Carbon Minipump to try out, and while there’s a lot to like about it, I was especially pleased to see that it attaches to the Presta stem by means of a push-on nozzle that is also easy to pull off when pumping is complete, and to do so without losing air pressure.

Before trying out the pump, though, I read the descriptive information about it on the Rene Herse site, which said that the pump is rated to 142 psi, but it also said, “Like most minipumps, the NUDA works best for wide, low-pressure tires” and that “above 70 psi, pumping gets a bit harder.” This caused me to wonder how useful the pump would be to me since I am running 700 x 28c tires on both my road bike and my road ebike. I do have 700 x 35c tires on my touring bike, though these days, I ride that steed less frequently than I do the other two. I recently gave away my mountain bike, which had the widest tires in my fleet.

NUDA the nude 

Still, the features of the NUDA made me want to try it. For starters, it’s very lightweight. The barrel and plunger are made from carbon fiber, and the cover over the nozzle opening is titanium. In all, the NUDA weighs only 30g — just over an ounce. The pump comes with clips for mounting it beside your water bottle cage, but it’s short enough — just under 8 inches — to fit inside many handlebar bags. If you prefer to use the mounting clips, however, the titanium cover on the nozzle rotates to keep splashed-up road gunk from building up in the opening.

The NUDA is made exclusively for Rene Herse by the Italian company Barbieri, and the NUDA name comes from them. In Italian, “nuda” means “nude.” The Rene Herse team tells me that they take the name to mean “stripped down to the essentials,” or “not dressed up in any way.” 

“What we like about the NUDA is that the light weight comes from simply leaving off everything not needed, and making all that’s left as light as possible,” Jan Heine, president of R&D and co-owner of Rene Herse told me during an email conversation.

The descriptive text on the website also informed me that “the O-Ring in the pump head rarely wears out, but if it does, it’s replaceable.” The replacement rings are available from Rene Herse, and the pump packaging includes simple directions for the replacement process.

The NUDA is only compatible with Presta valves, but that’s no problem for me because the tires on all three of my bikes use that valve.

So, the disclaimer about the pump working best on wide, low-pressure tires notwithstanding, I decided to see how it performed on a narrow, high-pressure tire.

Testing the pump

I tested the pump to see how well it inflated my 28 mm road bike tire and my 35 mm touring bike tire. With any minipump, my expectation is not that it will achieve the high psi I can attain with my floor pump, but that it will provide enough psi to allow me to complete my ride.

My tires have inner tubes. In each case, I released all the air from the tube before attaching the NUDA and beginning to pump. After each series of strokes, I measured the air pressure using Topeak Smartgauge D2X Electronic Bike Tire Pressure Gauge.

My road bike tire is a Continental Gatorskin (700 x 28c). The manufacturer does not state a minimum recommended psi, but the max recommended psi is 116. When using my floor pump, I usually inflate these tires to 80 psi (front) and 90 psi (rear)

• After 100 strokes of the NUDA plunger, the air pressure in the tube was 23.7 psi
• After 50 additional strokes, the air pressure in the tube was 32.4 psi
• After another 50 strokes, the air pressure in the tube was 42.8 psi
• After another 50 strokes, the air pressure in the tube was 53.8 psi

By that point, the pumping required a little more effort, though it was still possible, but the tire was firm, and I was satisfied that I had sufficient air in the tire to ride the bike.

My touring bike tire is a Michelin Protek (700 x 35c). The manufacturer’s recommended psi range is 36 to 87 psi. When using my floor pump, I usually inflate these tires to 55 psi (front) and 65 psi (rear).

• After 100 strokes of the NUDA plunger, the air pressure in the tube was 18.5 psi
• After 50 additional strokes, the air pressure in the tube was 26.9 psi
• After another 50 strokes, the air pressure in the tube was 32.7 psi
• After another 50 strokes, the air pressure in the tube was 38.6 psi

By that point, the pumping required a little more effort, though it was still possible, but the tire was firm, and the psi was slightly more than the manufacturer’s minimum recommendation, so I was satisfied that I had sufficient air in the tire to ride the bike.

To those inexperienced with a minipump, 250 strokes probably sounds like a lot of effort, but it’s not out of line as minipumps go. With the NUDA, the strokes were fast and easy until reaching the upper PSI numbers, where the resistance increased a bit, but not so much that I couldn’t continue. What’s more, since no air pressure was lost disconnecting this pump, none of the strokes were wasted.

My conclusion

For each of these tests, I was easily able to remove the nozzle four times (to use the gauge) without losing air pressure. That alone put the NUDA well ahead of the screw-on nozzle minipumps that have left me cursing them when attempting to fix a flat at the side of the road.

Add to that the pump’s light weight and its ability to fill the tire sufficiently without an unreasonable amount of pumping, and I was sold.

The NUDA is now the pump I carry on my rides.

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Stan Purdum has ridden several long-distance bike trips, including an across-America ride recounted in his book Roll Around Heaven All Day, and a trek on U.S. 62, from Niagara Falls, New York, to El Paso, Texas, the subject of his book Playing in Traffic. Stan, a freelance writer and editor, lives in Ohio. See more at www.StanPurdum.com.