Florida HPRA Results

February 12, 2015/ Jim Parker

Fresh off the race courses in Ft. Lauderdale last weekend, we now are in the final prep for Bike Sebring, another Florida bicycle racing classic. Before the starting gun fires on Saturday morning, I wanted to report on the HPRA races, which were quite noteworthy for Cruzbike. The first day of the 2-day event was held on a flat crit course, and the second day in the nearby velodrome.

Maria did not compete in all the events that she could have because 1) she wanted to conserve some energy for Sebring, and 2) she had working meetings with new Cruzbike designers to discuss product development. Nevertheless, she squeezed in a new (unofficial- based on published HPRA course records) course record in the 50-lap event on the velodrome, averaging 24.36 mph (breaking Jacquie Schlitter’s record of 22.67 mph).

Maria Parker clowning around with Charlie Ollinger at the track.

The big story was Charlie Ollinger, riding a Vendetta with a customized frame/seat, breaking course records in the 200 meter and 1 kilometer velodrome events that had been set by Mike Mowett on a Morciglio M1 lowracer. He also easily won the 50-lap velodrome event, and came very close to setting the course record, there, too. Charlie did the 200m in 12.182 seconds (36.725 mph !) which beat the 12.25 s /36.52 mph mark. In the 1 kilometer, Charlie’s time of 1:11.86 (31.129 mph) beat the 1:13.0 (30.64 mph) mark.

Over in the trike category, I raced my Vendetta with the TTRIKE attachment and won six of the seven trike races for the weekend, including one course record in the 20-minute crit race, averaging 23.58 mph, which was enough to break the 22.65 mph record set by Tim Hicks in 2010.

Another impressive Cruzbike contender was Daryl Hanger, who raced his recently acquired Sofrider in the Stock category and scored 7th overall in points out of 15… not bad considering the Sofrider was built for comfort, not speed.

All the victories were team victories. We had a great crew helping out, and we stayed up late at night discussing innovations and improvements to our bikes.

L to R: Lowell Smoger (Mech. Eng.), Maria Parker (racer, CEO), Lucia Parker (Marketing/E-commerce), Jim Parker (racer, Director), Robert Holler (Product Manager/Customer Service), and Jacob Bouchard (Industrial design).

Full results can be seen here.

Now it’s on to racing at Sebring!