The Hutch HPV: 20 inch hauling ass bike

On this cover of BMX Plus!, we have freestyle pro Rick Allison sitting on the Hutch HPV.  The rise of BMX racing in about 1970 led to a bunch of other 20 inch bikes over the years.  As most of you know, Bob Haro created the first bike made for freestyle in about 1983, which sparked dozens of other freestyle bikes since.  In the mid-1980's, riders started building GPV's, Gravity Powered  without chains, to bomb down big hills.  Most of these were originally built from spare parts.  A few GPV races were promoted, and fairings were added to increase speed.  The guy behind most of the fairings was an engineer name Dan Hannebrink.

When I worked for the American Freestyle Association in 1987, a couple other 20 inch bikes came into being.  One idea was F-1 (or Formula 1) racing.  Basically, it was BMX racing, but without jumps.  So it was racing weird little 20 inch bikes around a hay-bail-lined course in a parking lot.  Bob Morales, AFA founder and my boss, and I helped put set up one of these races in the parking lot of Irvine Meadows amphitheater.  Most of the BMX bike companies were represented there.  It was kind of fun to ride the bikes around the course for the first lap or two.  Then it just got dumb.  You can see the cover blurb and small photo of "Formula 1 Challenge" on the right side of the magazine cover above.  Despite a lot of hype by industry people, F-1 racing was lame, and died a quick death.

But out of that same time period, came the Hutch HPV (Human Powered Vehicle).  One of the cool things about working for Bob Morales was that he was always doing ads for other companies, and had a ton of side projects, like Auburn Bikes, that I helped out with from time to time.  As luck would have it, we got custody of the prototype Hannebrink HPV, built for Hutch.  Bob was getting photos shot to do ad ad for it, I think.  So I got to ride it.  At the time, the gearing was still be worked out, and the smaller front sprockets didn't work.  So Bob and I tried it out on the road near the AFA, starting off in the super high top gears.  It was tough to get rolling, but the thing flat hauled ass once we got going.  That night, as Bob was working on something in the shop, I rode the HPV down to the beach, where the big, wide, Bolsa Chica Beach bike path was.

I rode down that path every weekend on my freestyle bike, and I could usually keep pace with most mountain bikers.  I rode a lot of miles back then.  But the cyclists on the road bikes would blow past me.  Not on the HPV.  I had to pretty much stand on the pedal to start off in that high front gear.  But then I got going, and upshifted to the top rear gear.  I was blowing past the handful of mountain bike riders like they were standing still.  I even easily passed a couple of road bike cyclists.  I don't know how fast I was going, but I'm pretty damn sure I was pedaling 40-45 mph on flat ground.  People would literally jump as I road past them, then do a double take.  Some thought I was riding a motorcycle on the bike path.  It was a lot of fun.

But I was exhausted after riding a couple miles out and back on the HPV.  The idea never took off, and I don't know if any of them ever sold.  But as a BMX guy used to getting dirty looks by cyclists, it was great to blow past them on the HPV.  I was looking for a photo of the HPV recently, and I just found this cover on Pinterest today, so I decided it was a good blog post for today.