The 24th Materials Australia Victoria & Tasmania Branch Annual Technologists' Picnic

Friday 2nd September 2022

Guest Speaker

Noel McFarlane

"The design parameters of bicycles used for travel, with an historical perspective"

Whilst product categories over time show the “tug” of fashion and, these days, “influencers”, the design of bicycles intended to be used for travel should respect the 130+ years of work that has gone before. There are product innovations but, in this tiny category, it is historical knowledge and practical experience that come way ahead of fashion and marketing.

About the Speaker:

Noel’s family left Theodore in 1963 to farm at Griffith NSW. At the end of high school there he went to the USA for a year as an exchange student. Back in Australia he went to Sydney University and did an economics degree. At the end of that he began bicycle touring, riding from Sydney to Cairns, to Perth and then throughout India. In 1979 he started a bicyle shop in Sydney and, soon after, a bicycle import business that eventually became quite large in Australia and New Zealand. During the ‘80s and ‘90s he married and raised three children. In 2003 he returned to bicycle touring and to this day still spends three months a year touring mostly overseas. In 2010 he reduced the bike importing and distribution business to only touring bikes (viventebikes.com) and he bought a farm in NW Tasmania. It is a walnut/sheep/goats/geese farm in a very nice location. In 2022 he is setting up to do the bike assembly in Tasmania. About 50% of the bikes are exported. 

These annual dinner-meetings have customarily been supported by members of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, the Australian Foundry Institute, Materials Australia, Engineers Australia and the Australasian Corrosion Association. Interested members of the general public are also encouraged to participate.

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