I'm thinking it's even colder inside the shop than it is outside.  The thermometer said 18 but I'm so bundled up for the most part I feel fine.  I got about 15 pairs of brackets finished and ready to mount on the bases.  Gluing the latex is gonna be a challenge.  Ms. Penni won't let me glue in the house - she says one person hallucinating at a time is enough, so this definitely puts a kink in my production schedule.  I'm hoping the freeze breaks in the next day or two and I can finish the orders in time for the holidays.

Jim (jimali) made a first neck rest prototype to mount on the original Catrike neck rest horizontal tube.  It's similar in design to the POC mount.  Jim started with my base and latex, then took the original Cat design one brilliant step further by using rigid PVC pipe and a PVC elbow instead of the aluminum.  To mount the neck rest to the tube we used two stainless U bolts.  It seems to work fine, but it wasn't adjustable enough for the tight tolerances on his 700.  And my guess is that with the U bolts it didn't look finished enough for Jim's beautiful mango machine.  So he passed it along to Robin (dragonfly) who further refined the design and mounted it on her Speed.  

As you can see, Robin's a master with spray paint so the whole apparatus looks totally prime time...except for the old sock cover. I have to get this back and finish it right with a nice cover and an embroidered dragonfly!  Even though they seem to work well I'm not a fan of the U bolts.  I think we can mount the neck rest on the tube with simpler, lighter and more elegant hardware.  When it'd done I think this will make a neat kit for folks wanting to mount one of my neck rests on an older Catrike tower or a POC tower.  And if anyone bought a Villager, Pocket or Trail without a neck rest, this would be a great and inexpensive solution. 

I'm sorry the pictures of the TOT gear are delayed.  The cutting and pasting (of the pictures not the gear) is taking a bit longer than we planned, but we're still hoping to get them posted here and on BROL before the end of the weekend.

Here's something that DID get finished today...a prototype for a different neck rest design, ready to be fitted with latex and a cover.  It'll still fit the stock Catrike towers and is just about the same dimensions as the current neck rest.  But it's a very different shape.  I love the original, and I'm curious to see how this one feels.