A few months back I started a review of the Portland design works Fatty Object thing and did a bench test to see if the 38 g CO2 cartridges would fill a 4-inch fat bike tire. You can see that report here. Over the last few months, I’ve done some testing out in the field with this inflator. Fortunately, I’ve had good luck with my tubeless setups and have not suffered a flat in over six months. 
(Now I’ll get one for sure) After carrying this thing around for months I started to dump air from my tires for the off-road portion of my usual ride and then used the fatty thing to inflate my tires back to 10 to 12 psi for the road back to the barn. I did these inflation tests over a week. I was surprised that the cartridge held air for multiple days. PDW was surprised as well, when I told them that the fatty object had performed in that manner. The chuck on the Fatty Object is really easy to use and doesn’t allow any air to escape during the mount, the inflation or the dismount. It just pops on there and does its job.
So we have proof of concept we have proof of practicle use in the field. Using CO2 inflators is a very well established way to inflate your tires. It’s the fastest and easiest way to inflate a tire. It comes down to how practical these are for your kind of riding. When I think of CO2 inflators, I think about racers. This year at the USA Cycling national championships I was talking to Cole House about his win and he described to me a situation where he had stopped and dumped a bunch of air from his tires and then realized that he overdid it, but he didn’t want to stop and pump more air back into his tire. I thought that he could’ve really benefitted from this kind of inflator to help him quickly add some psi. (Even though he won the race already).
One of the questions that I had at the beginning of the test was the availability of replacement 38g CO2 cartridges. Portland design works does have replacement 38 g CO2 cartridges on their website for $12.95 each and that includes a foam insulator which is very handy because when you release that gas, these cartridges frost over completely. I also purchased two 38 g CO2 cartridges from Amazon.com. These MSW cartridges were $15 each and do not come with a foam insulator.
We’re going to pass our Fatty Objects along to the racers in our crew and keep you posted on how things go for them. I’d totally recommend the Fatty Object to mis amigos that want to get their tires inflated quickly.
For more from Portland Design Works visit – ridepdw.com
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