My Neck Rest is better than Yours.

[MrSteve]

...but yours can be at least as good.

First, strip your head rest.

Next, put your expanded foam neck rest pad away, in a safe place, out of the reach of squirrels, kittens, puppies and small children.
You'll need to use your closed-cell foam neck rest pad, an inner tube that holds air, two nice rubber bands and your neck rest cover.
See?
The purple and white things on the seat are the rubber bands I used.
Now, wad up the semi-inflated inner tube and tie it on top of the closed-cell foam pad like this:

Now, stuff your new neck pad/air mattress into the stock neck rest cover and slip it all into place,
checking for fit.
You'll probably need to bleed enough air out of the tube to get it to fit well...
like I need to do.

You may need to readjust the position of your neck rest, because it is now a little thicker than stock.
Or not: I liked the change, but it's my invention... so of course I'd say that.

Try it.
You will not miss the buzzing in your head and you'll be much more comfortable for much longer.
The stock neck rest is really good, surprisingly good in fact.
But this puts the stock neck rest to shame.

I have put hundreds of miles on this inner tube -used as my neck rest- on my hotrod Sofrider,
with zero problems.
Today, I put fourteen miles on it, mounted on the V.

Enjoy.

-Steve

 

[BentAero]

I like it. Great place to store your tube as well -until you need to use it.

I'll try it, as I just can't quite get that last little bit of neck pain to go away with the stock setup.

I recently acquired an Adem headrest but haven't yet begun to fab it up.

 

[John Dorlon]

I wish I had a little less (maybe an inch or half an inch) vertical rise in my head rest. I've padded the upper part of the back rest and that helps a little, but not quite enough. Has anyone had and solved this problem?

 

[MrSteve]

If you need a little less vertical rise in your head rest, try adding some padding to the top of your seat.
Raising your shoulders will effectively give you a corresponding amount of change in the effective rise of your head rest.
This way, you can see exactly how much change you need and go from there.

 

[trplay]

I wish I had a little less (maybe an inch or half an inch) vertical rise in my head rest. I've padded the upper part of the back rest and that helps a little, but not quite enough. Has anyone had and solved this problem?

Yes I cut a couple inches off the vertical and used a slightly larger dia coupling to piece it back together. Worked great but didn't solve the problem. Neck still hurts. The photos above are the ugliest head rest I've seen to date. Don't get me wrong I like the ingenuity! I'm off to stuff some old trike 451 tubes in my newest head rest cover. It just might work--- Signed: Desperate in Georgia.

 

[trplay]

BTW your rear tire appears to be on backwards. Look for the rotation arrow which is only on one side of the 4000's. Another way to check is the shark fin tread should be swimming towards the front of the bike.

 

[Rick Youngblood]

BTW your rear tire appears to be on backwards.

This is standard protocol on Vendettas, it helps tame the speed!

 

[Doug Burton]

On Maria's RAAM bikes I shortened the vertical rise on the headrest by 2 inches, as I remember. I cut 2" sections out of the straight section of the rise and then slotted the cut out sections 1/4". closed the tubes up, and then used them as reinforcements at the cut by shoving them inside the straight rise sections. I coated the inside with epoxy, drove the reinforcements in with a rubber hammer (they were a tight fit), and clamped the lower sections to either side of a piece of 2x4 lumber to keep everything in the right orientation as the epoxy set. We also covered the headrest material with a piece of nylon panty hose material to reduce the abrasiveness of the headrest. Seems to have worked pretty well.

 

[trplay]

I tried the inner tubes but was unable to keep a consistent shape. Using a air filled cavity that mirrors the cover might be ideal. Anyone know of one? Right now I am using a cover that is strapped around rather than going over the metal frame. It is a bit bulkier and doing the job somewhat but nothing to write home about. I like the strap method because it allows me to use the metal frame for other attachment points IE. Pack and taillight. If one looks closely they can see the coupling I used to shorten the vertical frame. I simply cut a couple inches off slid the couplings on and riveted them back. It now has thousands of miles with no problem. Seems like you could make a frame that telescopes up and down with pins to custom fit each rider. Cruzbike should look at that. Since the headrest isn't ideal I have and extra pillow I place on the headrest that slides up and down the rest. I can easily adjust it on the fly which is working on the pain but not ideal on the aesthetics. Will stick with this until some smart person can come up with the ideal set-up.

 

[MrSteve]

This inner tube neck rest works for me, but even I know that that's just me.

The idea of an air cushion is certainly not new.

I'm very sure that there are many, many suitable -well, at least one or two- adjustable air bladders available.
There's the bladder in blood pressure cuffs, sphygmomanometers, that could be adjusted on the fly, for one.
Of course, rubber cement exists and, by sectioning out and patching together a tube into a custom air bladder,
you'd end up with your own custom air bladder.

Since my vintage Vendetta is equipped with the older style headrest clamps, I can change the effective height with shims.
Changing the angle and or lowering the height can be accomplished by adding shims between the clamp(s) and the seat pan.
If you do this, make sure that your bolts fully engage the nuts held captive in the plastic headrest clamps.

Thinking out of the box is fun...
I thought I'd share this kluge of mine because suspending your noggin on air is so, so worth it.

 

[trplay]

I like your idea a lot. I just need to find that ideal air bladder. It's out there but where?

 

[bladderhead]

What? Bladder headrest? I think you are confusing me with someone else. Or just confusing me.

 

[MrSteve]

After cutting the inner tube to a length that, when folded up, fit the space nicely, I glued and clamped the ends shut and
let the glue cure over night.

This morning, I assembled the neck rest and went for a test ride.
After readjusting and shimming the neck rest to fit me, I disassembled it all to take more pictures.

This may be the last version of my air cushioned neck rest, at least for this bike.
It's almost as plush as the intact inner tube was and is still more buzz-free than the stock foam.

Yeah, that's a toe.
I'm using it.

-Two feet of inner tube, with the valve centred, fits nicely atop the stock closed-cell foam pad when folded twice -which yields four 'chambers.'
I added a piece of 1/8" camping mat to make it pretty. Pink is a fast colour. Ask anyone.

And there it is, cut-to-fit, assembled and installed.

 

[John Dorlon]

If you need a little less vertical rise in your head rest, try adding some padding to the top of your seat.
Raising your shoulders will effectively give you a corresponding amount of change in the effective rise of your head rest.
This way, you can see exactly how much change you need and go from there.

Thanks Steve, yes, that's exactly what I've done. I've also added some padding (socks rolled up in a bandanna) in the gap between the top of the backrest and the bottom of the headrest. It helps some but not quite enough. I do like the idea of the air cushion. I always have to remember to lift my head when I see a bump coming in the road.

I guess what I'd really like to know is does anyone have any idea of how much it would cost and where I could go to get a tube of aluminum bent like the current head rest tube, except with less rise? I don't have the equipment to do a good job of something like that.

I was thinking that a nice enhancement for Cruzbike would be to have some kind of dial on the vertical rise section to make that distance adjustable. Or to have different sizes available.

 

[trplay]

I really like the cut inner tube idea. Do you simply cut your tube and use standard glue from a patch kit? I guess a latex tube will be great for this ? Thanks , I'll have to give this a try.

 

[John Dorlon]

On Maria's RAAM bikes I shortened the vertical rise on the headrest by 2 inches, as I remember. I cut 2" sections out of the straight section of the rise and then slotted the cut out sections 1/4". closed the tubes up, and then used them as reinforcements at the cut by shoving them inside the straight rise sections. I coated the inside with epoxy, drove the reinforcements in with a rubber hammer (they were a tight fit), and clamped the lower sections to either side of a piece of 2x4 lumber to keep everything in the right orientation as the epoxy set. We also covered the headrest material with a piece of nylon panty hose material to reduce the abrasiveness of the headrest. Seems to have worked pretty well.

Oh, thanks Doug! I'm happy to see you are still here! I thought you might have left with John T.

I was thinking about attempting something like that myself too but I am a little afraid that I might mess it up and then be left with nothing!

 

[ratz]

I guess what I'd really like to know is does anyone have any idea of how much it would cost and where I could go to get a tube of aluminum bent like the current head rest tube, except with less rise? I don't have the equipment to do a good job of something like that.

Contact Mark at http://bikesmithdesign.com he'd be the best guy to do it; the price will be fair and he'll use the correct aluminum

 

[John Dorlon]

Contact Mark at http://bikesmithdesign.com he'd be the best guy to do it; the price will be fair and he'll use the correct aluminum

Thanks Ratz.

 

[MrSteve]

Mr. Trplay, I raided all of the patch kits I could find and found no viable glue in the one tube I found.
I'm pretty sure it would work....

The other option I had was the quart can of solvent-based rubber cement that's stored way in the back.
It's still good, so, after scuffing the ends of the tube and whisking the debris away, I applied the rubber cement,
let it set up 'till it looked right and then clamped the ends with two of my cleaner (least-cruddy) spring clamps.
It works fine.
We'll see how long it lasts.

Mr. Dorlon, have your neck rest cut just a fraction of an inch shorter than you need it cut.
I'd guess by about 1/4" ?
You can fine-tune the fit with more rubber/foam or air in the pad... and more padding on the top of your seat, like you've been doing.
But if don't have enough tubing removed, then you'll end up cutting some more out of your neck rest tubing.
Custom work is not cheap.

Adjustable neck rests would be nice, wouldn't they!

Nice to see you're still popping in, Mr. Burton!

 

[snilard]

I am also thinking how to make headrest lower and more softer. My first attempt is pretty simple. I have wrapped headrest tubes with electric tape and removed hard foam from headrest cushion. No testing yet, no photo yet.