The Value of Sporty Redundancy

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For years, and years, I loved to rock climb, explore via ferrata, hike and more but as soon as Autumn came and people went indoors the social calendar dried up until the next spring. With cycling, to a large degree you have the same issue. As soon as the nights shorten, or it rains, or it gets colder, the motivation to go for a bike ride declines.

Groups also ebb and flow, so if a group is thriving one week, it might become quiet the next, and then the silence expands, and suddenly your social calendar is empty.

I felt stupid for having two cycling groups in Nyon, a third in Geneva, and two or three running groups between Nyon and Morges but when I saw that a key group was shifting to Saturday and Special Events only, suddenly there is a vacuum in the week’s calendar. Except that there isn’t.

One activity was on Monday morning, but a second one is on Monday evening, with another group. A second activity is on a Tuesday evening, and then Wednesday and Thursday are empty, but Friday is occupied by the 6am run. That 6am run is both great, but requires a commitment the night before, to sleep at a reasonable time, or at least attempt to, before meeting the group for a run, as soon as the bell tolls 6am.

I don’t know what triggered the change. I do know that I have group redundancy for running, and cycling. If I was reliant on just one group, then I’d be at a loss for what to do during the week.

I felt silly for having the Nyon group that was local and convenient and going to Geneva to cycle with another group, and Morges to run with others and even Divonne for yet another cycling group. Now that one Nyon group has changed its schedule it gives me the opportunity to explore yet more groups. This evening I can experiment with a new (to me) running group.

By applying the Network of networks to running and cycling networks I have redundancy and resiliency. If one node fails I just switch to another until it’s back. I no longer have a single point of failure. I have a network of things, to do, and people to meet.