The fact is, the Argos Value Bicycle Pump is just a bicycle pump. It's pretty difficult to get excited about it. If you have a bike, a pump is a must have, and at £3.49, how far wrong can you go?

The pump is very normal looking. It's your standard black bicycle pump. It's long and thin as opposed to those chunky ones you can get elsewhere. This actually suits me quite well as my bike has a carrying attachment for these sorts of pumps. It comes in minimal packaging- just a simple plastic bag rather than a box.

It's only available in black, so if you're the kind of person who likes their accessories to match their bike, you'll be sorely disappointed. But I can't say I'd consider this to be a major issue.

The pump is quite versatile. You simply screw in the appropriate adaptor and it can be used to inflate a variety of things, from an inflatable bed to bike tyres.

The pumping action seems very easy and light, so it's not uncomfortable to do, unfortunately, there's a reason for the lack of resistance shown by the mechanism: it's not particularly efficient. It takes a lot of pumping to inflate anything. I think that this might be because the attachments do not fit snugly over the valves in the tyres, meaning that air escapes easily.

I would recommend this bike pump as a backup only. It's too rubbish to be relied upon. It might be good for slinging in the boot of your car for those just-in-case moments, but aside from that, I think it would be more sensible to invest in a product that can do the job well. A decent pump wouldn't cost you a lot more, and I really don't think the extra effort involved in pumping is worth the money saved. At the end of the day, it does the job, it's just that it does the job rather slowly.