Dr Trevor Allen

Trevor is an Exercise Physiologist and Scientist with a keen interest in anything on wheels.  He completed his PhD in 1999 at Monash University in the field of muscle injury and adaptation.   Since then he has worked as a research scientist and teacher in disciplines of physiology, physiotherapy, engineering and rehabilitation science in Australia and Canada.  More recently Trevor has worked with the Victorian and Australian Institutes of Sport on applied sports science projects.

As a teenager, Trevor spent his spare time tearing up neighbourhood nature strips on his bmx.  However once in possession of a driver’s license, his focus shifted away to faster machines - cars, kart racing, and motorbikes.  In 1997 Trevor got back on his bike for a Ride-To-Work day, cycling 30km into the city.  It was the first of many more, and Trevor has cycled to work ever since. 

Trevor has enjoyed bicycle touring thousands of kilometres in Australia, Europe, Middle East and Asia.  As an exercise scientist he sees the bicycle as a key to solving two of Australia’s fastest growing problems – Disease due to inactivity, and Pollution due to our dependence on fossil fuel cars.  Trevor will be using his experience to help the riders enjoy their cycle journey to Sydney.

eZee Electric Bike Company - Ken Ching

Ken certainly wins the "Biggest traveler of the Suitable Transport" award. Ken will be traveling from Shanghai to Melbourne just to be on our ride.

Although he is currently living in Shanghai, Ken holds a Singaporean passport and has lived and worked in Germany for one year and France for two years. He finds the European villages a little homely, and prefers the cosmopolitan living of Shanghai. Ken, just wait until you spend a night in Cann River; we doubt if you will ever want to turn back.

Ken has a genuine belief in the potential of the electric bicycle in today’s society. He feels without compromising on fun health and liberty, they return sensibility to urban commuting in a time when our society has gone overboard with car culture.

Although we are yet to meet Ken, we are looking forward greeting him and sharing his enthusiasm for photography, music, film, literature and magic. He is planning to return home with photographs, video footage and interviews of the journey and the other riders. Ken, We will do our best to oblige!

Golder Associates - Relay Team (5 of 9 shown)

Golder Associates is a global group of consulting companies specialising in ground engineering, mining and environmental services.  As a company they are clearly committed to applying global sustainability principles, that's why the jumped on this ride with such gusto. It's great to see a company actively support their employees in their goals to reduce the environmental impact of their travel whilst simultaneously working to improve their health and protect their safety.  Golder Associates are proud to see their team living their values.

The Melbourne office formed its Bicycle User Group (BUG) in 2005, with a goal of raising awareness of cycling across the office, improving facilities in the building & with an end goal of increase the number of cyclist riding on a regular basis. In the first 12 months of Golder BUG the group ran a Tour De France Sweep (with 120 participants) and they increased the bike parking from 10 to 28 bays. They also participated in the 2006 Ride to Work Day with 47 out of 135 staff riding to work. Golder Associates were nominated by Bicycle Victoria as the 2nd National  Ambassadors for 2007 Ride to Work Day.

Cheers Golder Associates!

Golder Associates - Robin Friday

Robin is the senior member of the Golder Associates Suitable Transport relay team. When offered a place in this ride, he took less that five minutes to decide he wanted in, having been a keen cyclist all his life.

Back in 1972 a spritely Robin joined Golder’s then 20 member Melbourne team with his Civil Engineering degree in hand, fresh from 4 years of work Tasmania and a 7 year stint in Broken Hill. From then until now he has assessed geotechnical aspects of places all over the world. One of the highlights was a three week visit to New Zealand’s beautiful south Island that turned into nine months. He has been present through the company’s ups and downs, and now works a few days a week with the 500 hundred strong Australian contingent of this remarkable international company.

Technically speaking Robin will demonstrate that even people of a senior age can ride an electric bike, however the truth is he could probably out ride the rest of us without raising a sweat – electric motors or otherwise. We are looking forward to the gentle humility that he will doubtless bring to this journey.

GP Graders - Dave Supple

Dave has spent the last 22 years of life his fixing and building fruit handling equipment for Melbourne based company, GP Graders. He travels a great deal with these guys, but says the real highlight was a visit to Copenhagen some years ago. He noted that for these people bicycles are a way of life, and to steal a persons bike is considered a far greater crime than stealing a car.

Dave has been happily married for 25 years, and he speaks with enormous pride about his family. A great deal of his time is spent helping his 13 and 16 year old daughters achieve their goals – school, sports, and becoming adults.

When he was younger, Dave worked as a boiler maker on the Westgate Bridge, Sydney’s Centerpoint tower  and Collins Place. These days he looks forward to one day making his own aluminium framed racing bike. He knows that bikes can be purchased cheaply in China, but he also understands well the satisfaction of using something that was made by your own hands.

Intersect Alliance - George Cora

Like Steve, George joined the RAAF in 1984 as a bright eyed (and disturbingly youthful) Officer Cadet. During his RAAF career he learnt a lot about communications and Cryptography, and spent a lot of time hiding in special rooms with no windows and muted colour schemes. After a relatively brief stint in the Public Service, he started Intersect Alliance, a company that keeps the computers run by Banks, Corperations and the Military free from intrusion from naughty people. He remains its director today.

In spite of his career choice, George is hardly the archetype software geek, and has a love of drawing, playing jazz drums, surfing and aviation. George is the old guy in the Canberra based jazz band, “in Full Swing”. He is pictured sitting in the cockpit of his lovely Techman Sierra aircraft, which he uses recreationally to tour Australia.

George hardly has a shortage of ways to spend his time, but is likely to become qualified as a flying instructor in the future.

MEL Australia - Roger Kozel

Pact Records - Phil Ceberano

Since the early 1980’s Phil has played and toured internationally as an artist in his own right, and in support of his sister Kate. Phil plays and records with his band Trentwood, a three-piece pop/rock group from Melbourne. Their motto is rightfully “Rock is its own reward”.  Every Australian guitarist knows his name, and admires his talents.

Phil brings enormous enthusiasm to anything he does – be it a show at the Melbourne Cricket ground, a jam in the backyard with his mates, or his Rockshow 101 school tours. The school tours offer the young audience an inspiring look at self motivation using rock and roll as the back drop. These shows are just one of many examples of his keen sense of community responsibility.

In true Ceberano style, Phil says he is looking forward to a tour that is relaxing and does not involve endless nights sleeping in the back of a Tarago van.

Pelican Expeditions - Finnley Sunlight McKechnie

Finnley is 8 months old. His travels so far have included a 4WD expedition to Cape York where his namesake, Uncle Sunlight, is a traditional owner of the Lama Lama people. He has also completed his first sailing voyage of 2,000 nautical miles between Cairns and Melbourne. A mass of contradictions, Finnley’s got his sea legs but he can’t walk. He loves making friends, blowing raspberries and making people laugh but he can’t talk. He cares about his future but he can’t vote.

Pelican Expeditions - Lara Crew

Lara is Finnley’s full time mum. She reckons all that stuff about being a highflying career woman at the same time is a myth. In her former life she worked extensively as a negotiator and advisor with indigenous communities in Cape York. She has been a park ranger, Greenpeace activist and ministerial assistant but insists that motherhood is her most exciting role yet. As a long term resident of Cairns she is a lousy Melburnian.

Pelican Expeditions - Garry McKechnie

Garry, Finnley’s dad, is a sea captain. His vessel, Pelican 1 is a sailing catamaran engaged in marine research, environmental education and indigenous projects. Most recently Pelican featured as the research vessel in the ABC documentary “The Big Blue” about blue whales, the worlds biggest ever creatures. Garry, an ex teacher, actor and film-maker, loves good coffee, clean oceans and Finnleys mum. (not necessarily in that order)

Phocas Software - Stewart Irwin

These days Stewart is one of the directors of a software company, Phocas. His company provides software that helps other organisations track the sales of their products and state of their supply chains. He is most passionate about learning, so it’s hardly surprising to discover that he enjoyed doing a degree in Biotechnology/Genetic Engineering at NSW Macquarie University.

Stewart is a fanatic follower and participant of all projectile based sports and can provide infinite detail regarding the subtle art of Cricket, which he believes mirrors life itself. He also has a great a understanding of jazz theory, an ability to remember the lyrics of every TV theme song or show, and can compose a fitting song without notice at parties. The theme song currently played in his head is – “I dream of Genie”.

He gives frequent consideration to opening a café, intends to continue his global travels, and hopes his future lies to the left of the field, with a smile. We have no doubt that he will be successful in this goal.

Postcards TV Series - Esther Anderson

Although Esther remains a humble Geelong girl, she can speak with some authority about Los Angeles, London, Seoul, Milan, Hong Kong, Munich, Tokyo and Osaka, having lived and modelled in all of these places. These days St Kilda is her favourite destination, where she can remain close to her friends and family – the most important things in her life.

Esther is rapidly establishing herself as a Television presenter, and recently has earned herself a place on the travel series Postcards. This didn’t quite come from nowhere; she has appeared in numerous international TV advertisements, and has been studying acting for film and television for years now. She looks forward to more presenting opportunities, yet remains extremely grounded, and eager to support her local community.

Ester has recently dusted off her bike helmet, and is looking forward to seeing some more of our country by a very suitable means.

Australian Red Cross Blood Service - ARCBS Team.

The Australian Red Cross Blood Service (ARCBS) is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent family and is responsible for the provision of quality blood products, tissues and related services for the benefit of the Australian community.
The staff of the ARCBS cover a range of disciplines such as nursing, medicine, medical science, marketing, quality and regulatory affairs.

As such, the ARCBS relay team is also quite diverse. We have scientists, personal assistants, donor services staff and the National Operations Manager, Dr Philippa Hetzel.

“It was hard to choose the team to participate in the relay from a workforce of more than 2500 staff,” Dr Hetzel said. “Our staff are dedicated to blood donation and helping to save lives everyday, but we are also quite passionate about the Suitable Transport project.  As an organisation, we understand better than most that one person can really make a difference.”   

The ARCBS team includes people travelling from the Northern Territory and Western Australia to ride with the Suitable Transport team.

Introducing the ARCBS Relay Team:

• Esther Gadd - who is the Executive Assistant to Operations Manager of Perth and is coming to us all the way from Perth!
• Jocelyn Hird - who processes the blood products into different components and is joining the team from Darwin
• Josephine Davison - who is the PA to Regional Manager for the Northern Territory;
• Lauren Gray – who is Communications Assistant with the National Communications and Public Affairs team;
• Staurt Blair - who is one of our lovely Technical Officers in Sydney;
• Malcolm Stewart – who is one of the hard working laboratory technicians based in Sydney; and
• Dr Philippa Hetzel - who is the National Operations Manager and making  the final leg of the journey

Georgio - blood donors make it possible for Georgio, and others like him, to receive treatment every season of the year.

Urban Burger - Andrew McAllister

Anyone who meets Andrew will instantly recognise his generous personality and his love of adventure. When asked if he wanted to participate in the Suitable Transport ride, he replied without hesitation, "I would feel honored to!"

His adventures started on a big scale when he joined the Royal Australian Navy in the communications field. He trotted around the world on HMAS Protector and Melbourne - "A Contiki tour with 200 of your best mates!"

For several years after the RAN, he looked after the likes of BHP and AMP's computer systems in the IT game, but he was eventually drawn to the possibility of running his own business.

One year ago Andrew chose to start his own business and opened Urban Burger in Mebourne's Richmond. These days UB is running well and they are constantly busy providing great tasing, healthy meals for loads of fussy Urban dinners.

Waste Converters - Ward Petherbridge

One of Ward’s defining moments occurred at the age of about 18 years old when his father’s business college asked Ward if he would mind collecting a Ferrari from Europe and “looking after it for a while” so it could be later returned to Australia. Naturally this led to him establishing himself as a Kaarsen Maker (Dutch for candle maker), specializing in the production of tie died, pyramid shaped, fragranced candles.

Approximately eight years later Ward sold his candle business for a surprising profit, and he returned to Australia. He translated his excellent business skills into the successful Waste Converters, a timber and organic recycling company.

Ward’s immediate future includes marriage to the very beautiful Miranda, making children and one day growing up.     

Wildilocks - Cass Edwards

Cass is a hair extensions and dreadlocks specialist who owns and runs Wildilocks, an alternative hair and fashion business in Perth, Western Australia. Operating for over four years Wildilocks has metamorphosed from a tiny stall to a huge basement premises with an ever-growing range of products and services, concentrating on creativity, environmentally sound options and alternative presentation in every way possible.

Cass also holds a bachelors' degree in Multimedia Design, and in yet another former life was an itinerant street artist, circumnavigating the globe five times following festivals and her heart, but these days prefers to be on two wheels to get about. Yes, Cass is already an ebike enthusiast and is looking forward to promoting this fantastic sustainable transport option to anyone who'll stand still long enough to watch or listen.

Photo - Jacqueline Patrice