The Trident neck rest prototype is looking really promising.  Instead of the usual "L" tower it looks like this one will use a center-mounted "T" tower.  In the picture the tower's top crosspiece has yet to be welded on.  What remains to resolve is whether there's sufficient clearance between the extra adjustment tubing at the bottom of the stem and the trike's rear wheel or fender.  I may go with a longer throw stem if necessary.  I'm hoping this will be ready for sale by early March.

Other good news...I have some Catrike CURVEs in stock ready to ship.  They'll be perfect now if you're living somewhere warmer, or perhaps if you're snowed in you have your trike in the living room.  With a new neck rest watching TV while sitting in your Cat will be a luxurious new experience.

It was a great day to drive to Sequim.  Grey, drizzly, heavy overcast...Jim (jimali) and I headed for Mike's Bikes in Sequim to look at a TerraTrike.  In the past couple of weeks I've had inquiries about mounting my neck rests on ICE, Sun, Trident, TerraTrike and ActionBent trikes.  Having all these possibilities is a great way to begin the year.

We already know the kits fit on ICE trikes with mesh seats, and it looks like it'll fit on at least the Sun model I was asked about.  We have a Trident seat on its way from Tom Flohr to make sure we have a kit that will fit all Tridents including the new Spike.

The day trip to Sequim was to see whether there's an easy way to mount one of my neck rests on those trikes.  The good news is that they all use essentially the same seat, Rover included.  So one mounting mechanism will work for all.  The other good news is that Sequim is in a rain shadow on the Olympic Penninsula, so while it was rainy and grey everywhere else we got to spend a few hours in a pocket of scattered clouds and, yup, even some sun.  That alone was worth the trip.

Sequim's right on the Olympic Discovery Bike Trail, and Mike's is conveniently located about a block off the trail.  It's a really nice shop with a great selection of bikes, gear and accessories...and they rent bikes and helmets if you're just up for a day ride.  http://www.mikes-bikes.net/  Mike wasn't around but the mechanic couldn't have been more helpful.  He pretty much said, "There's the TerraTrike, enjoy yourselves."  He said that if we wanted to take the seat fabric off so we could see better that was fine with him, and he obligingly got a new Rover seat out of a not-yet-assembled Rover's box so we could see it was identical to the Cruiser.

Jim's good company and was a never-ending source of, "Well what about doing it this way..." suggestions.  In the end we came up with a possible solution good enough for a prototype.  The challenge is to find a good mounting location high-enough on the seat back to keep the lever forces of leaning against a neck rest to a minimum.  The seat-back brace tube is actually two side-by-side small diameter tubes so the mountain bike stem won't work.  Plus I think it's too far from the top of the seat and a rider's neck...too much moment arm force would be applied to the braces.  My original idea of using the open tops of the two vertical seat braces to attach a new horizontal brace to mount the stem won't work either.  The caps look like they're too difficult to remove, and there's a smaller diameter inner tube in each for mounting a flag.

If anyone's actually reading this I can just imagine how incomprehensible it must be.  I'll upload the photos I took and a drawing of the prototype later.

It turned out to be a perfect day - really nice drive in beautiful northwest country, great company, good conversation...and a fine dark beer with a friend before catching a ferry home to Ms. Penni, Travis and Gomez.

It's been a while

I just discovered a note from 12/27 from Walt Ebbert.  Walt, you said you wanted a neck rest for your 2009 Expedition.  I'd be glad to make you one.  The best thing to do is to send me an email at stevesussman@earthlink.net.

 
Hard to believe I haven't posted since before Thanksgiving, so I'll try to make this one special. 

But all things considered it makes sense.  It has been a constant parade of visitors and carrying on throughout the holiday season.  Plus the weather's been lousy so I've spent a fair amount of time splitting and stacking firewood, and finding excuses to stay out of the shop.

The big issue for me the past two months is to finally find out what the neck rests actually cost to make.  While I've never compared the two business models - my consulting practice and making the neck rests, I really began to doubt I was even breaking even...and that's with the assumption that my time doing all the fabricating was worth nothing.  The tug between wanting and fearing to know kept me pretty much paralyzed for the past two months.

But now it's done and in the process I made some surprising discoveries. The biggest is that the most expensive neck rest to make is the one I began with…the replacement for newer model Catrikes.  It really shouldn't have been a surprise...fabricating and powdercoating the brackets, plus the additional stainless hardware, is expensive.

In a nutshell, here's the deal...and just about all of it is good news:

WHAT WON'T CHANGE:   

• The CURVE KIT ("L" tube, mtb stem, shim and CURVE neck rest) will remain $85.  
•  The CURVE neck rest with the circular clamps for older style Catrikes remains $45.

WHAT HAS CHANGED:  The CURVE replacement for the stock Catrike rest that mounts on the vertical arms is now $55.  The reason for the increase is simple - fabricating and powdercoating the brackets, plus the additional stainless hardware, is expensive.

Like before, please figure a small shipping charge.

MORE GOOD NEWS (at least I think it is):   

• The KIT also fits ICE trikes with the mesh seat, 
• We've about to begin testing the KIT for Tridents...all of which use the same seat.
• I've had inquiries for TerraTrikes and Actionbents so I'm starting design work on those as well.

 

Here's a picture of the full kit.  It's a CURVE neck rest, "L" tower (6061 thin wall aluminum), mtb stem and shim.

It will fit all older model Catrikes that came with the tube tower, and all newer models like the Trail, Pocket and Villager you may have ordered without the neck rest.  I'm pretty sure it will fit a Dash as well.

We're also trying the kit on a Trice Q...the challenge is making a shim for 1" to 7/8", the diameter of the seat back cross brace.  I'll keep you posted about this one.

Here's what really made me smile yesterday.  My granddaughter Maya, the perfect ad for  pretzels on a chilly Autumn day in Germany.  Is it possible to love someone too much?  Maya's one of a bunch of people I feel this way about...oh, and of course four footers as well - Travis and Gomez for sure.

About neck rests.  I've had a bunch of inquiries about how to order a neck rest, and since it's simple I should have probably explained it here.

Ordering is easy and there’s no need to pre-pay.  If the neck rest is for a Catrike and you'd like one without embroidery here's all I need to know:

Is the neck rest to replace the stock rest on a newer model Catrike with these towers?  

If so, then all I need is your mailing address.  Once the neck rest is done I'll mail it to you.  If you're satisfied then send me a check for the enclosed invoice amount.   My address is on the invoice.

If you'd like something embroidered on the neck rest then tell me what you'd like.  A name, screen name, nickname or short statement will add about $5 to the cost.  If you tell me the color of your frame then I'll match the thread.  If it's an image you want, give me an idea and I can send you some choices, or if you have original art I can have that embroidered as well.  Cost varies for each depending upon thread count and whether we have to digitize your original art.

If the neck rest is for an older model Catrike with one of these mounts I'll need to know so I can send you one with the proper brackets. 

If your Catrike has no neck rest right now (many Villagers, Trails and Pockets can be purchased without neck rests) you'll need the complete kit of neck rest, "L" tower and mtb stem.  Let me know this when you order.

   And if the neck rest you want is for another manufacturer's trike let me know which brand.  Some require the full kit plus just another shim.

For all these other neck rests, I'll need the same information I described above it you'd like them embroidered.

And by the way, feel free to email or call with questions and any special requests.

I posted this last night on BROL in response to a question...so I figured I re-post it here since I get a lot of questions about neck rest models and available options. 

 

"...here's the deal with the two shapes. The first neck rests I made were ROLL models. I used 2" thick open pore foam as fill. They were nice and people liked them...I really liked mine. Unfortunately the adhesive I was using caused the most amazing hallucinations and was probably what finally caused me to tattoo the note, "If I seem lost, please return me to..." on my hand.

I started making the CURVEs after I made a special order half-round neck rest for someone who needed to stabilize his neck side to side. The open pore foam fill didn't work well with the CURVEs so I began experimenting with latex...and began testing new less personally toxic adhesives. The latex was great, and I really preferred the CURVE design because I like how it cradles my neck. However I soon discovered the manufacturer couldn't control the latex density and so some batches I got were so soft they were unusable.

So I bit the bullet and started using memory foam, which is 3X as expensive as the other fills. Then I graduated from hand-made brackets to having them fabricated by a great shop in Portland and then powdercoated in Tacoma. And I finally discovered what seems to be the perfect adhesive.

Just about all my orders in the past 9 months have been for CURVEs, and the feedback has been terrific. I think that with the CURVE I've finally found the perfect combination of shape, fill type and adhesive.

As a result I've stopped making the ROLL model. And there's another reason. Memory foam seems happy folded into the CURVE but not happy wrapped around the ROLL base. It wants to return to its original flat shape. And because the adhesive works so well it becomes a tug of war between the two with the end result being that over time the memory foam seems to tear. While there are solutions they greatly increase the cost of making the ROLL. And since the CURVE works so well I just don't think it's worth the expense.

I've tried them both and I really love the CURVE.

By the way, I just sent off the first kit for a Trice Q and am anxiously waiting for feedback. And I have full kits available for Pockets, Trails and Villagers."

I'm really excited to see how the Trice kit works.  It's essentially the same as the Catrike kit with one added shim to adapt the mtb stem to the smaller diameter horizontal seat tube.