Club history
The Melbourne Bicycle Touring Club has a proud history, having run continuously since 1973.
MBTC in fact started life under the name ‘Action Unlimited’. Formed by Keith Warburton, an English migrant and electrical engineer, the club initially organised all kinds of outdoor activities including bushwalking, canoeing and orienteering.
Early club member Margaret Lawrence had a collection of rusty old bikes which the club repaired, painted and took along for trips, loaded into Keith’s aging van.
Cycling soon became the club’s main activity, both for its own sake and as a way of getting to other activities – all the more remarkable when you consider recreational cycling was almost unheard of in Australia at this time.
As club numbers grew, members used trains as a way to get out and about. Meanwhile, as cycling leaned more and more towards cycling, the club made the decision in 1977 to change its name to the Melbourne Bicycle Touring Club.
While other cycling clubs came and went, the Melbourne Bicycle Touring Club steadily grew throughout the 1980s. The format of has stayed largely the same since then, with a mixture of camping, country and urban based rides mixing cycling with other interests.
Source: “The First Thirty Years’ – Ron Shephard
Celebrating our 50th anniversary
In November 2023 we proudly celebrated our 50th anniversary with a gathering of past and present members at the Furlong Club in Thornbury.
Read a news story for some words and photos about the celebrations.
SPecial edition Key rings
MBTC has produced special edition key rings to mark the occasion. These are available for all current members and those joining us in the coming years.
‘The First Thirty Years’ booklet
Members interested to get a taste of the club’s history can check out this illustrated booklet produced by Ron Shepherd to mark the club’s 30th anniversary.
There are photos, illustrations, anecdotes and a timeline of key milestones. Ron presented this as a paper to an international bicycle conference in Osaka in 2000.
Here’s an excerpt from the cover page:
The Melbourne Bicycle Touring Club has been gracing the by-ways of Melbourne for just on thirty years. It’s time to look back at what we’ve done and where we’ve been … and perhaps gain some insight into where we might go from here.
It’s not intended to be a history in the purest sense. Rather, it’s a pictorial and verbal anthology of the collective experience of the club. A part of each of us is in every photograph and story. It’s a rich heritage to share and to revisit. Enjoy.
Download The First Thirty Years (18 MB pdf)
