Back rest for Bigfoot buggy

I built my back rest using two Specialized bicycle head sets, two short 1” PVC sepments and a backpack hip pad.

The bike head sets are the pieces that typically hold the handle bars to the head stock on a road bike. In the buggy case, these attach to the side rails of my PL XR+. Attached to the other end of the head sets are PVC tubing running vertical. These in turn act as supports for the actual back support. I used a standard backpack hip support strap padding that wraps around the two vertical supports and creates the back rest.

The set up works great. The actual back support is adjustable up and down to fit the height that you need, you just raise or lower the PVC in the head set. Also the angle is adjustable because to the slope of the side rails. (You can have more or less recline) Both of these adjustments can be made in a couple of minutes using a single hex wrench. The width of the vertical separation is fully customizable to fit your back by ordering the appropriate length of the head sets. They come in a wide variety of lengths (Specialized offers 12 different lengths!) so I just measured my back width, subtracted from the vertical separation of the rails and divided by two. This gave me the length of the head sets that I needed to best fit me. Bike head sets also have a couple of different angles that can be ordered, Specialized has either 12 or 24 degrees of ‘drop’. For the buggy this is not that critical but it does allow the head sets to be below the upper surface of the side rails and out of the way of moving body parts. Once I figured out what I needed to fit me, I ordered them at the local bike shop and they arrived in two days.

Since there is no actual ‘hard’ metal between the two rails the comfort is excellent. The PVC is both supportive and can flex under pressure. The net outcome is the vibration is reduced and the whole system can give a little if I push back into the seat or hit a bump. Break down of the buggy is completely unaffected since the only thing that connects the two sides is the soft padded back support than simply disconnects and sides off the PVC supports. The back support padding had as part of the attachment points to the original pack back, nylon web straps which line up almost exactly with the seat retaining straps on the buggy. I simply added loop attachment to the back rest and every thing straps together and is stable while riding.

The final product looks very clean, is very comfortable (folks at the NABX referred to it as the ‘Lazy Boy recliner’ ), simple to assemble, and has no effect on assemble or disassembly time.

Cost: the issue is that I needed the head set to fit on the 11/8 OD tubing of the buggy rail. Specialized Comp-Set head set is one of the few companies that make a bike headset with this large size. http://www.specialized.com/bc/SBCEqProduct.jsp?spid=25337 Cost me about $70 to get just what I wanted. The padded hip strap I had from an old pack, but they are available at a good sporting goods store (REI).

I can post photos of the individual components and the final assemble if wanted.

this is my solution, and it works great..

press here..