I’m not sure if you’ll remember me, racer #845, aka Louis Baker, circus bear, douche baker, dillweed, knucklehead, color-blind superhero, bonehead, well you get the picture.
The Crash. The gun went off at 6:30a.m., and I – along with everyone else – started pedaling. Things were tight, and the neutral zone rule didn’t cross mind especially as I listened to my mp3 player getting ready for one of the most difficult mountain bike races around. Then this happened: Ladies and gentlemen, meet Elden Nelson (Fatty) – feeling all the riders around him were following the rules except me, but lacking the skill to stay upright when things go bad, leans into me almost making me crash. Somehow I manage to catch my balance and simply try to keep moving. Unfortunately, Fatty was not so lucky and got caught up with me or something on my bike. Though I kept moving forward and didn’t check back on Fatty for fear of causing a pile up, it appeared to be a slow moving crash and I hoped Fatty was ok. As most of you don’t know, I am not an angry, resentful, sadistic person. In fact, I’m one of the most positive upbeat individuals you’ll ever come across. Hindsight, I should have checked on him. This is what I remember happening in the heat of the moment. But the rest of this post is going to be sarcastic. Why, Oh, I dunno. Maybe because some ballerina with poor balance fell off his bike and blamed me publicly. Despite Fatty’s lack of balance, I cringe at the idea of someone being hurt in these events. Anyway, if you don’t like my side of the story, you may want to read Angry Fatty’s post one more time. Oh, that atrocity of cycling garb. I feel inclined to explain. You see the day before the race I was unlucky enough to get my matching race jersey signed by Lance Armstrong and Dave Wiens putting me in somewhat of a jersey dilema. Do I ride with an original signed jersey of these legendary men? So off to the local bike shop where there was a plethora of jerseys (only 1 medium) to choose from. Now I knew going in this looked ridiculous – but I did have a cool signed jersey! You may be saying to yourself, Louis intentionally cut Fatty off and was gunning for him because of his celebrity status knowing he was the king of cycling web blogs and the ripe opportunity to be famous. Yes, that was it, forget about being in a cool race with Lance. Oh, and that picture, it clearly explains what happened. I intend to use it as a brochure in my new line of cycling clothing called “Take Out Fatty”. As for Fatty, well, let’s take a look at how much injury and time he lost in the race. Ok, this is his twelfth year doing this race, that is very cool, not a bad time at 10:06. Let’s see, my time was 10:38 and this is very new race for me and Fatty is three years younger than I am, shoot you got me…this time. Elden, some advice: next time you race, you may want to bolt on some training wheels, I have some if you want to borrow them.

As I mentioned before, I’m not an angry, resentful, sadistic person. Maybe because when someone feels the need to be judge and jury and abuse their power, I get a little worked up. Like this week, when my wife, friends, co-workers and boss got to read this garbage. Initially I thought about responding in anger, but resolved myself to take the high road and post an apology for the good of the order aka Cyclist. Power comes with a higher level of integrity and to do the right thing. I considered not writing this response but in Fatty’s words “ it’s how I really feel at the moment” This too may not be my most noble moment, but I hope it will make Elden think before he posts…In response to Elden’s cooled down state:

We all hopefully learn from our mistakes.
We all have done stupid things and there are two sides to a story.
A blog is not a place for revenge. A simple email or phone call would have been nice. Elden, you have a responsibility as a leader of your community and web master to control the content of your communication. I’m sure you are a good person and this incident is not really what you are about.
About that gut, I’ll lose weight if you will…

Best regards to you and your wife.

Louis Baker

Anyways, you have inspired me to get a SS this winter – going to try some mntn biking on an SS and I can’t wait.

Sending lots of positive vibes to Susan and you as well. Happy anniversery and thanks for blogging.

http://www.fatcyclist.com/2008/04/08/best-jersey-pocket-food-ever/

GO…FIGHT…WIN!!!
For Susan that is.

congrats on having a great time, Fatty1

WIN, Susan!

Good to see you had great event!