This page is dedicated to the Life Members and commemorates the history of the club. If you have any news or information, you think should be added to this page, please send it to [email protected]

Life Members

This is the list of honorary Life Members of the Perth Mountain Bike Club
⦁ Justin Garvin
⦁ Yolande Joubert
⦁ John Waddell
⦁ Rob Hazard
⦁ Scott Sharples
⦁ Brian Carr
⦁ Miikael Kinnunen
⦁ Paul Neve
⦁ Bron Sucheki
⦁ John Carney
⦁ James Lobegeiger
⦁ Tony Tucknott
⦁ Greg Murison
⦁ Mark Wardle
⦁ Jenn Wardle
⦁ Chris Park
⦁ Toni Jenkinson
⦁ Neil Rattray
⦁ Ashley Genefaas
⦁ Martin Nugent
⦁ Chris Mullane

Founding committee

The following information was sent in from Jack and Christine Thornley.

Along with myself, a police man and a father and son from Carmel, we started the Perth Mountain Bike Club back in the 70’s.
The original meetings were held at my home which was then in Forrestfield on a Tuesday evening, with my wife taking notes.

As our membership grew, only by a few, the meetings were then held at Yamaha West, a motor bike/bicycle shop at the top end of William Street, Beckenham. At the time, I was starting my own business and getting increasingly busy, so my association with the Club decreased but the last race that I helped organize in the Jarrahdale area had approximately 30 entrants.

Other early committee members that I know of were “Steve Jolly” and “David Green”

Early Days

With great thanks, the following information is from Hudson Bancroft. Have a read, it is really interesting.

I joined the club for their second meeting (I believe?) at Jack Thornley’s place. I used to mark out the race tracks and the first races were located at the original Farrell Grove location – it has been moved a little further down the Mundaring Weir Road than the original location. We had about 25 to 30 entrants in just about all the early events.

We held a few in that location, given the lack of experience and the rather rudimentary nature of the bikes, the tracks were not that technical but were steepish in places. They would be considered easy by today’s standards.

We held a few events at the quarry off Coulston Rd. Boya. The first national Australian XC series event held in WA at the Boya quarry. The national ‘Downhill’ and uphill was held in Kalamunda National park – the downhill actually had an uphill section in it! The second WA national event I believe was in the Greystones area.

We also used the the Jarrahdale location for a few events. But the main location for some time was what is now called the Greystones area. I think the longest course we had in Greystones was in excess of 18km – but we reduced the distance as it was a chore to mark out and spectators couldn’t get to the far part of the course (which was the most interesting due to a fast downhill jump). In the winter the farthest area was often frost covered early in the morning.

Two other locations used were the track outside Bunbury and the Albany track which was around Mount Melville, organised by the guys in Bunbury and Albany.

I was fairly familiar with all the tracks used in the early days around Perth hills as I tended to select the routes and mark them out (stapled red arrows on white backgrounds to trees). Living in the Mundaring area it was easy for me to explore and select routes. My memory is that Justin Garvin (I believe he also had a brother who assisted as well) and a couple of others often assisted in marking the route out.

From memory Steve Jolley won the first WA open championship and was probably the first sponsored rider here – but unsure about that.