Cycling’s Most Esteemed Floor Pumps Just Got Even Cooler
Since its founding in 1917, Silca has enjoyed a reputation for producing products that are both durable and elegantly designed—true reflections of form following function. Silca was owned by the Sacchi family until 2013, when the company was sold to Josh Poertner, a bike industry veteran and former technical director for Zipp Speed Weaponry. When Josh moved the company from Italy to Indiana, tongues were wagged and heads were scratched—but Josh says the move allowed him to mine some of the best manufacturing minds in the world. While the racing scene in Indianapolis may be more focused on four wheels than two, taking advantage of the prowess at hand allowed Josh to elevate the common bicycle pump from a utilitarian shop item to a work of art.
The SuperPista Ultimate floor pump is the newest iteration of the Silca aesthetic, and at $450, it’s no inexpensive item. For those who want something super special, Silca offers custom paint from a who’s who of high-profile frame builders. We examined two of our favorites.
RELATED: Why Silca’s SuperPista Ultimate Is So Damn Expensive (and Worth Every Penny)
Joe Bell: Bell has painted every Richard Sachs frame for over 30 years. For the Silca/Sachs collaboration, Joe wraps his pumps ($800) in current team livery in a variety of colors. The House Industries logo represents the partnership between these two powerhouses of design and art. Delivery is dependent on Joe’s backlog of orders.
Dario Pegoretti: The most sought-after custom work arguably comes from Pegoretti. Prices for his pumps start at $900, with most of the pump designs pre-sold or already sold out. The pump shown here was made for our own Editor-in-Chief, Bill Strickland, and matches his personal bike—which Pegoretti happened to build for him a few years back. I’d heard whispers of the way the paint job came about, but I’ll let Bill tell it in his own words:
“The pump is painted to match the ‘ciavete’ paint option—Dario’s choice—that he did for my Responsorium. I know him pretty well, and at a dinner one night, when he was asking me what I wanted my bike to look like, I told him I’d send him something that explained it. He went out to piss in the gutter, and came back and launched into a beautiful, 20-minute defense of pissing in the gutter under the moonlight. Then we went outside and looked at the moon for a long time. We just looked.
“When I got home, I sent him a copy of ‘The World Doesn’t End,’ by Charles Simic (a book he keeps in his workshop to this day) and some Bad Plus CDs. He likes jazz, but hadn’t heard them. After I got the bike, I asked him what he was thinking of. ‘At the beginning,’ he told me, ‘I put Bad Plus on my player, pumped up the volume, sat down on a chair with a nice coffee cup and a Marlboro cigarette in my lips, with the idea to make something more intricate than I used to do until now—something more rich but elegant and austere, with a bit of wild in it, to be honest.’"
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