Oz Bicycle Club to ride no more

The end has come for the Oz Bicycle Club, a Wichita biking club that started more than four decades ago.

What once was a club with more than 500 members has dwindled to 250, with only four to six people attending monthly meetings.

Blame it on Facebook, Twitter and the rest of social media.

“It was a painful, but necessary, decision to make,” Helen Wait, chairman of the Oz board of directors, said Thursday.

“With social media taking over, people would just post ‘Hey, I’m going for a ride, want to go?’ That’s taken away the need to have pre-planned group rides. People aren’t showing up for the rides like they used to.”

The remaining members voted to disband effective Friday.

The club is donating its assets – materials and cash – to the Prairie Travelers, a group that builds and maintains off-road trails for both cyclists and hikers.

“We closed because we’ve been having lower and lower memberships each year and because we couldn’t get any of our members to step up and take leadership roles in the club,” Wait said. “It became obvious we weren’t going to make any forward progress.”

The group was formed in 1973.

The Prairie Travelers club has agreed to host the Oz Club’s Wicked Wind 100 on May 21, said Ruth Holiday, co-owner of Bicycle Pedaler and board member for the Prairie Travelers.

The ride used to be 100 miles long but is now 100 kilometers, which is closer to 62 miles, Holiday said.

“It’s the largest bike ride of the year,” Holiday said. “We will keep it in the same place, Lake Afton. It will be a fundraiser.”

This story was originally published March 30, 2017 at 5:23 PM with the headline "Oz Bicycle Club to ride no more."