She looked after me a lot. She called to tell me to register for Fitchburg when she noticed registration was almost full and my name wasn’t on the list. She gave me rides when I needed them. She listened to me when I was frustrated with the normal challenges that are part of racing.

Over the summer this year, I spoke with Nancy often. We talked about racing together on the same team again, and I was thinking about joining Psoas just so I could race with Nancy again. In the end I stayed with my own team, which is filled with people I care about and that I wanted to support, but I have to say that I never raced with anyone as much fun to race with as Nancy was. She was always so exciting. I loved to watch her jump up and attack hard, making others chase. She was always smart, and she had the best bike handling skills of all of us. She was so feisty, so spirited, and such an excellent athlete. If something didn’t go well for her at a race, instead of moaning about it, she would just immediately start figuring out how to make it work better next time.

I moved to Tennessee at the end of August, this year. I started saying goodbyes at the end of the summer. Nancy came to my going-away party at my apartment on 105th Street. We spoke on the phone several times those last August weeks. The last day I spent with her was the last weekend I was in the city, the end of August. Nancy, Jane Maloney, and Arthur Berger and I met in front of Jane and Arthur’s apartment. We rode out to Brooklyn to race in Prospect Park. We rode along the Hudson bike path and over the Brooklyn Bridge. It was beautiful. The race was hard and fast. Jane and I dropped out; we weren’t feeling great and it was so hard. But Nancy hung in there and we cheered her on at the finish. Then we rode back to the Upper West Side together. I said goodbye to Jane and Arthur since I knew I wouldn’t see them again before I left for Tennessee. Nancy and I talked about riding together again, but since we weren’t sure about the timing we hugged goodbye, and we knew that we were saying goodbye for quite a while.
In a way I’m one of the luckier of the people that loved Nancy. I had a kind of goodbye for her, and from her. I had a time of leaving, when you tell people what they mean to you and there is an open recognition of time shared and of love. I am so grateful for that. I know Nancy knew that I loved her. I said to her as we were riding back from Brooklyn that last time that I didn’t know what I was going to do in Tennessee, racing without her, that I would be lost and bumbling on my own. We laughed.

Nancy taught me about the Jewish Sabbath, and about the importance of Sabbath itself. I will remember her always on those days. I will keep her in my heart and I will race each race of my life a little harder, remembering her fireball spirit, always. I trust that she is with G-d now and she is having the race of her life.

Loren Launen