I put a friend onto a good deal on a new bike recently. He wanted one "with shockers front and rear". I told him the nitty gritty and he's happy as................but..................his rear shock was bottoming out "every fucking time I ride it" he says. I asked what pressure he had put in his rear shock and he said "Dunno, the tyre gauge on my air compressor didn't say anything".
Yep, he's tried to pump the shock up with an air compressor.
Well, that's even better than my attempt. Out on the trail I thought I'd do some fine tuning on the rear shock & had my shock pump with me. Rode 1 trail, thought it needed a bit more air so I whip it out and get to work.
3rd pump in, BAM, the hose blows and lets ALL the air out of the shock. I'm in the middle of the bush so it was a fair walk out in Qld summer heat that I wasn't particularly keen on. So I pumped it up with a mini-track pump (with a gauge). I think I got it to around 80 psi before I started to worry that was going to explode too. A very squidgy (and super slow) ride back to the car for me.
Another attempt with pumps: Riding to work & had to take the kid to kindy on the way there. We walk the 1km or so to kindy and I notice about halfway there my back tire is getting a bit flat. Probably a slow leak I tell myself, already running late.
By the time I get him to kindy & do the drop off, it's at the point where I can only ride it if most of my weight is on the front wheel. No worries I tell myself, I'll ride it the slightly less than km to the servo to pump it up, should be enough to get me to work where I have a spare tube (It's a 29'er with 2" tires, plenty of air, and slow leak apparently).
Ride it to servo, flip it, get the pump ready aaaaand presta. Fuck. You think you'd remember something like that.
Next options: ride home, loosing 30min, being extra late and facing the wrath of wife for the f-up so far, or ride on another 2-3km to Anaconda and get a spare tube, pump & levers.
I chose Anaconda. Lo & behold though, they don't open till 9:00 on weekdays, so I was pretty damn late anyway, after waiting out the front for a good while. Eventually got there though. Should have just turned around & changed it when I realised all of 300m from home.