To some extent I am
To some extent I am interested in what you are doing with the headrest rack as I am finding my Bachetta Brainbox (BB) has several issues:
- The BB mounting pocket assumes a wider, flatter object inside of it than the padded Vendetta headrest.
- The BB wide stabilizer panel (with buckles and straps does not work.
- Because of the above the BB tends to move left and right, like a dog wagging their tail.
- Looping the bottom forward strap around the headrest tubes helps control wagging a little but not satisfactorily.
- Adding padding to the headrest to fine tune head position is defeated by putting the BB mounting pocket over the headrest. Either the added padding is compressed by the BB or the added padding makes the headrest too big to fit in the mount pocket.
- Regardless of extra padding, the BB mounting pocket tends to compress the open cell foam such that the headrest becomes firm and pointy in a sense - defeating the ability for the soft top layer of padding to cup the head/neck.
That being said, the airbag for headrest padding adjustment intrigues me. The BB has quick release clips at the forward top edge that are used to clip to the wide fabric stabilizer panel. This doesn't really work for the Vendetta geometry but I have been thinking I could make a fabric pouch that uses these clips at the top and something else at the bottom to allow for customized padding amounts for the head/neck over the top of the BB mount pouch which is in turn over the usual headrest padding. Making the padding an airbag would allow for very fine tuning of headrest comfort and adjustment.
I think I can stabilize the side-to-side movement of the BB by mounting some tabs that extend out from the headrest tubes about where they exit from the frame plug. This could be combined with the "over the mount pouch" padding pocket to clip at the top and clip at the bottom mounting tabs - basically combining the idea of a stabilizer strap with room for more headrest padding for fine-tuning.
Alternatively, attach something to the seat but that requires bolting the seat down and I still want to explore making the frame tube interior easily accessible while still firmly securing the seat to the frame.
The metal rack looks purpose-built for water bottles. I prefer my Hydrapak water reservoirs. I assume you are focusing on creating a narrow rack within the silhouette of the existing Vendetta headrest for aero purposes but my head is wider than the headrest and much wider with a helmet so keeping it narrow results in no room for spare tube, pump, tools, etc from the looks of it.
The other thing that is important to me is the ability to quickly mount and remove whatever is hanging off the back of the headrest as I expect to do both ultra marathon racing as well as HPV racing. Most of the HPV racing is pretty short - especially compared to ultra distances and I don't want any extra gear on the bike at that point. Although I did discover this makes a good place to put your race numbers - I have been thinking of making a very light weight rig just to mount my race numbers on when not using my headrest bag.
The more I ride my V, the more I think about using your bullhorns as they look like they are where my hands seem to want to go.
The narrow upside down pistol grips or mini bull horns will maybe work with the forearm pads to help stabilize the extreme inboard hand positioning - holding my drop bars with my hands close in to the slider and handlebar clamp feels very twitchy and uncomfortable to me. What I would find objectionable however, is these things would be severely blocking my forward vision especially with my hands wrapped around them.
The air number bed , er, I mean seat looks promising but I wonder about getting it small, light, and durable.
One final comment about the Vendetta's headrest. I am finding I tend to be balancing on a point between two spherical surfaces instead of my head being cupped in a stable manner by the headrest. Especially with the rear adjustment strap/mechanism that I have on the back of my Giro Venti helmet. I am thinking about ditching the provided padding and mounting some sort of wide rectangular shape that clamps to the existing tubes. Perhaps even more than one. It should be easy to make a mount that lets the thing slide up and down to the desired position on the tubes and then tightened to the desired position. This would also allow the headrest tubes exposed to be used as quick release mounts for a bag/rack behind the headrest.
-Eric
