Armidale Bicycle Centre doesn’t have one defined owner. Instead, several members of the Bullen family have their individual roles in running the shop. Mark works in the business full time, and his daughter Katrina and wife Dianne both help undertake the administrative and accounting work of the business. Mark’s son, Mitchell also works in the business on a part time basis as does Mark’s father Jock.
To say that the Bullen family are uniquely qualified to provide advice and assistance when buying bikes and biking accessories is a serious understatement. Instead, the Bullen family lives and breathes everything to do with bicycle riding. Furthermore, if there is a family that have had more success in the Australian cycling scene over as many generations, we would be very surprised!
Several members of the family have represented Australia in bike riding. Jock participated in 6 Olympics and also participated in the Commonwealth Games and several World Titles. Jock was also in the Australian and State Champion on many occasions. Mark represented Australia in biking in the 1980s whilst working as a building apprenticeship and later as a member of the Federal Police. Mark also won Australian medals and state championships on many occasions.
Mark suspended his police career when his dad Jock wanted to start travelling with the Australian Cycling team where he was a manager and mechanic. Mark then took over the running of the bicycle centre from then onwards.
Most recently, Mitchell Bullen was in the national team representing Australia. Mitchell has also been named the Australian bicycle champion on 4 occasions! Most notably, Mitchell won a Bronze Medal at the World Cup whilst he was a professional cyclist!
Now that we have highlighted the many achievements of the Bullen family, we will tell you a bit more about the biking industry in our next posting!