This is our second article about this year’s World Bicycle Relief Charity Challenge. If you’re unfamiliar with the Challenge and how it works, you can take a look at the first article HERE. We're announcing the first of many great prizes available to donors - two of the most beautiful inflation products made, the Silca SuperPista floor pump and Hiro chuck. Since 1917, Silca has been making the finest inflation-related products for cyclists in the world. In 2013, Josh Poertner left his role as the Technical Director at Zipp to take over this venerable Italian company and to bring the same level of creativity and precision that he brought to wheels to inflation. He has reimagined old classics and introduced innovative new products, all made in the USA of premium materials and backed by an unprecedented 25 year warranty. We are proud to offer two museum-quality inflation tools that are durable enough for a pro team to use every day as our first prize for this year's fundraiser.

On the fundraising front, since we started last week, even without any prizes announced, we've put another $3,000 on top of the $31,000 raised at the dinner – a fantastic start! Many thanks to those who have already made generous donations. We hope to keep the donations rolling in to reach our goal of $100,000 (746 WBR bicycles)!

As in past years, you can donate ANY amount, but ONLY donations of $134 or more (the cost of one bicycle) will make you eligible for prizes. For every multiple of $134 that you donate, you get another entry. $268 earns you double eligibility, $402 earns triple, etc. Donations of 5 bikes ($670) get you an extra spot. And donations of 10 bikes ($1340) get you an extra three spots. For more details, read the first article at the link above or below.

To enter the challenge, you can donate online at the URL below. Like last year, the Ironman Foundation has been very generous in hosting and handling the donation site for us (Thanks, IMF!!!).

Link: crowdrise.com/RappstarCharityChallenge

You can also submit donations via traditional mail at this address:

World Bicycle Relief
Attn: Development
1333 N. Kingsbury Street
4th Floor
Chicago, IL 60642

Award drawing tickets will be assigned automatically from the donations, so please make sure to give us an email or phone number (or both) where we can reach you.

100% of your contributions are tax deductible and will be directed back to World Bicycle Relief.

Thanks for your support and commitment to WBR!

And now, onto the incredible offering from Silca. Silca is a small company, but one with incredible values. Ultimately, they believe that perfection can be found (and sometimes created) in the details of everything that any of us do. They support their products with spares and replacement parts for as long as possible, because they know that the perfect pump is yours. It's the one you've had as long as you can remember. The one that's never let you down, the one that's dirty and battered, the one that appears on so many of your great stories, from so many great trips, and so many great rides with so many great friends. Perfection.

Silca's donation: 1x SuperPista pump & Hiro chuck. MSRP - $560

Reimagining the iconic SILCA SuperPista was a transformative experience a small company like Silca. But they have enjoyed untold enthusiasm and support from SILCA fans worldwide through this process as they designed and developed. Hundreds of thoughts and opinions were solicited through their website as well as their Facebook page as they worked. What became clear through the process was that to SILCA users, the floor pump is not just another tool in the garage, it represents an important cycling ritual in their lives.

In some ways, inflating tires represents the simplest of cycling maintenance, yet to others it represents a critical performance technology or a final preparation to carefully tune the ride or cornering performance of the bicycle. Josh and the team at Silca heard stories from track racers who carefully set and log pressures before each event, of brevet riders looking to optimize comfort and rolling resistance, and of our own story of developing wheels for Paris-Roubaix only to learn that the three pumps on the team truck varied by over 10psi from each other! Ultimately, what they heard the most were stories about great friends, great adventures and great rides from around the world, all pulled together in some small way by a shared experience with these classic pumps.

Hiro is a bullet-proof high-pressure, disc compatible chuck for high pressure situations.

Years ago Josh was working with the Team CSC at the Dauphine Libere when he noticed one of their mechanics using the most amazing little chuck to manage the disc wheel inflation. Unlike anything he had seen before, it was all metal and used a 'lollipop' lever on the side to lock onto the valve stems in disc wheels. The team mechanics explained to Josh that these were made in Japan, and were coveted by all the Euro Pro mechanics as they were very hard to come by, and even harder to get replacement parts for. He followed all of that up by refusing to let me or any of the other mechanics even touch the thing!

Fast forward 10 years and Josh has been fascinated with creating a better, disc wheel compatible locking chuck. One which can hold 300psi (not that you would EVER do that..) one that was made from even finer materials, like Stainless Steel, and one that had the history and legacy of SILCA behind it so that it could be purchased and used knowing full well that replacement parts would be available for the next 100 years.

When he took the new SILCA side-lever prototypes to Europe, the mechanics were very clear in their demands: single hand usage, 250+psi capability for road and track situations, and at least a year of service before replacing gaskets (the equivalent of 10 lifetimes of use for the rest of us), and NO hose clamps! The Silca team worked tirelessly on these requirements as well as on innovating some new features, like a unique rotating head which allows the chuck to more easily align with the valve stem and eliminates hose twist regardless of wheel orientation. They decided on stainless steel as the primary material for it's environmental friendliness compared to chrome plated steel and for it's extreme durability and chemical resistance when compared to all other metals. They obsessed over the right amount of knurl, rough enough to be handled very precisely even when covered in grease or wet, yet not so much that those of us with office jobs during the week end up with shredded fingers. By the end of the prototype period, the mechanics nicknamed the chuck 'Hiro' partially as a nod to the Japanese heritage, and also due to the shared pronunciation with the English word 'Hero'. As one of Josh's favorite team mechanics would joke, 'I have 5 minutes to fill 9 disc wheels to 9 different pressures using compressed Nitrogen before the TTT...I need a 'Hiro'!

The Side-Lever Locking Chuck is classic SILCA quality and manufacturing in every detail. 100% made in the USA from fine stainless steels, 100% rebuildable, and utilizing a new, high-tech elastomer gasket design, the 253, which is already available for replacement sale and like all other SILCA gaskets, will remain available for the next 25 years and probably longer.

But more than just making great - REALLY great - products, Josh also cares about making a difference. In this short video, he talks about why he wanted to support the efforts of this fundraiser and World Bicycle Relief.