Bicycle Tire Inflation for Even Dumber Dummies

Blowing up air mattress "manually"

Just when we thought we'd seen everything... When we found some ignorant freelancer whose How-to article about inflating a bicycle tire conflated bicycle inner tubes with basketballs (no kidding: the guy said to insert the needle through the small hole in the rubber!), we figured things couldn't get any worse. We were, however wrong: along came eHow.com's Tammie Painter and her post (now niched at SportsRec.com) entitled "How to Inflate Bike Tires Without a Pump."

Offhand, the only way we can think of is to use a two-ended hose to connect the bike tire to one of the tires on a car, but that's pretty unlikely if you don't have a two-ended hose. You'd probably have to build one, in fact. Painter, however, came up with not one but two methods she says don't require a pump. Her problem? The first requires a pump, and the second is quite possibly one of the stupidest notions we've come across of late.

Method one, according to Tammie, is

"Using a CO2 Cartridge: Attach the CO2 cartridge to the nozzle. If you have a cartridge with a threaded neck, screw the neck of cartridge into the nozzle. If you have a cartridge with a smooth neck, insert the neck of the cartridge into the nozzle."

We'll buy that a CO₂ inflator (not a "nozzle") is not, technically, a "pump." On the other hand, if you have a CO₂ inflator and some cartridges sitting around, it's pretty unlikely that you would ever ask yourself, "How will I ever inflate my bike tire without a pump?" Ya think?
That bit of dumbassery pales, however, when compared to Tammie's second option:

"Manually Blowing Up A Tire... Blow a small amount of air into your tire. Use your tongue to press on the valve to keep it open as you blow."

No kidding, people, Painter thinks you could inflate a bicycle tire by blowing into the valve. With your mouth. And lungs. Never mind that even if you could inflate a bicycle tire on lung power alone, you wouldn't call that "manually"; just consider that air mattresses are usually inflated to a pressure of less than 2 psi.

In fact, what little we could find out there on the web seems to suggest that an average human can generate a pressure of perhaps 2 psi (pounds per square inch) on lung power alone. We'll also submit that the reason people turn purple trying to blow up an air mattress is the volume, not the pressure. On the other hand, most road bike tires specify a pressure of 90 to 125 psi and mountain bike tires require between 50 and 65 psi.
There is physically no way anyone could follow the instructions for "manually" inflating a bicycle tire as published by our Dumbass of the Day... or should she be the Dumbass of the Year?

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