By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
Jennifer Rarden was a gentle soul, one of those chill folks who would offer a gentle smile to something you said to communicate that she totally understood your point.
I always enjoyed Jennifer’s profile photo on Facebook because she — like me — was pictured with a bicycle helmet in the circular mug shot. She had a bright green bicycle helmet with pink-framed bike sunglasses. I thought it was cool that she wore a bike helmet in the photo that we use to tell the world who we are.
Jennifer’s background photo on Facebook showed a mountain bike on a stand. I just assumed it was her mountain bike. It was clear she enjoyed bicycling.
In mid-December 2018, I passed along a book signing invite to Jennifer for an event at Las Vegas Cyclery for a book I wrote entitled, Long Road Back to Las Vegas, which documented my comeback from Florida to Las Vegas to launch LVSportsBiz.com after a distracted motorist nearly killed me while I was bicycling on Florida’s east coast in March 2017.
Jennifer told me to swing by Park MGM on the Strip across the street from T-Mobile Arena to say hi. She worked as a guest services rep on the casino floor helping people with slot machines. It was after Park MGM was re-branded, and the place looked spiffy with new restaurants like Eataly. I took Jennifer up on her offer to say hi after a Vegas Golden Knights game in December 2018 and met her co-worker, Alex, who referred to her as “Fifi.” Jennifer, who worked the graveyard shift, was not working that day.
In an email, Jennifer explained the Fifi nickname. “Fifi is all Alex’s doing. He started calling me, ‘Jennififi,’ and it got shortened lol. You have to see Eataly when it’s open. We got a preview and the food is great,” Jennifer explained to me nearly two years ago.
We later met up at Park MGM and you can’t help but be struck by Jennifer’s unpretentious, friendly manner. There’s no heirs to Jennifer, not an ounce phoniness. Just a woman from Denver who loved mountain biking. We talked about taking a bike ride, though we never did a ride.
Like with so many friends during the pandemic, I lost touch with Jennifer.
But this morning there was horrific news as I surveyed the feed on Facebook.
Several of Jennifer’s friends posted messages that Jennifer had died. Here was one of the Facebook posts.
It just didn’t make sense. I’m horrible at estimating people’s ages, but Jennifer had a youthful appearance and looked like she was in he 30s or early 40s.
I was in denial. How could this youthful person be gone at such a young age? My brain just couldn’t process the Facebook posts about Jennifer’s death.
As the shock slowly wore off, I knew I had to do a bike ride in Jennifer’s memory this morning.
And while I don’t have a traditional mountain bike, I knew my big fat-tire Surly Pugsley would do the job. I planned to bike from Summerlin to downtown Las Vegas and slowly pedal through downtown to the Strip to the Raiders’ stadium and back to Summerlin via Hacienda and Tropicana Avenues and the 215 trail. It would be a ride of reflection to remember Jennifer.
Right before I left, I texted my good friend Kevin Cannon, a Review-Journal photographer and bicycle pal who lives in downtown Las Vegas to see if he wanted to join me for this early morning ride in downtown before he started his day for work.
As it turned out, Kevin was taking a vacation day and he shifted gears to create an alley bike ride in downtown where we would bike the alleys and admire the various artwork near Fremont Street and in the art district. Plus, we would bike to the new Las Vegas greeting arch on Las Vegas Boulevard in front of The Strat and also bike to T-Mobile Arena, Park MGM where Jennifer worked and the Raiders stadium to remember Jennifer and celebrate bicycling, which is what Jennifer loved.
This bike ride was for you Jennifer. I know you’re looking down and appreciating these scenes.
I stopped at Park MGM to talk with one of your co-workers, Jennifer. His name was Jaime and he was saddened like many of your co-workers.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Jaime told me on the casino floor this morning.
Yes it is.
Kevin and I bicycled to the Raiders stadium, where we snapped a few more photos and we went our separate ways back home. Kevin turned around and headed back to downtown, while I began pedaling west on Hacienda Avenue to the 215 Trail and Summerlin.
We honored your memory with the Tour de Jennifer and know your friends miss you, Jennifer.