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Today’s story happened last summer – July of 2018. William was out riding his bike.
He came up to an intersection where he had a stop sign, and had to turn either left or right. While he was stopped at that intersection, a car approached from his right, and turned left – coming straight at him.
What makes this story interesting is that the driver of that car didn’t see William sitting on his bike at that intersection, because the driver was looking down at his phone. He didn’t look up in time, and he drove right into William and his bike. William was knocked to the ground, and his bike was destroyed.
Oh, and there’s another part of this story that makes it even more interesting. The driver of that car was a police officer, and he was on duty driving his police cruiser.
Like a lot of cyclists, William has an action cam mounted on his helmet. So when this crash happened, the camera was rolling so the whole thing is on video. This video has been viewed over 11 million times:
This was a pretty interesting conversation. We talked about William’s high-end bike that was destroyed, the camera he uses when he’s biking, what happened when he got hit, who paid for his bike, as well as the coverage for his injuries. You’ll see in the video, the police officer that crashed into him two different times told him, “You’re fine”. But he wasn’t actually fine.
This is the other video we discussed, with his interaction with one of the EMTs:
Now, William has a new bike and a new camera. And that police officer is no longer an officer with that police department.
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Episode transcript (download transcript PDF)
Today’s story happened last summer – July of 2018.
William was out riding his bike. He came up to an intersection where he had a stop sign, and had to turn either left or right. While he was stopped at that intersection, a car approached from his right, and turned left – coming straight at him.
What makes this story interesting is that the driver of that car didn’t see William sitting on his bike at that intersection, because the driver was looking down at his phone. He didn’t look up in time, and he drove right into William and his bike. William was knocked to the ground, and his bike was destroyed.
Oh, and there’s another part of this story that makes it even more interesting. The driver of that car was a police officer, and he was on duty driving his police cruiser.
Like a lot of cyclists, William has an action cam mounted on his helmet. So when this crash happened, the camera was rolling so the whole thing is on video. And it’s been viewed over 11 million times.
I’ll have that video in the show notes for this episode, so you can see it at whatwasthatlike.com/19.
This was a pretty interesting conversation. We talked about William’s high-end bike that was destroyed, the camera he uses when he’s biking, what happened when he got hit, who paid for his bike, as well as the coverage for his injuries. You’ll see in the video, the police officer that crashed into him two different times told him, “You’re fine”. But he wasn’t actually fine.
Now, William has a new bike and a new camera. And that police officer is no longer an officer with that police department.
I hope you enjoy this episode. And if you do, and you’d like to support this podcast, you can buy me a coffee at WhatWasThatLike.com/coffee.
And now, here’s William.
Scott
How often are you out riding your bike?
William
Usually, when it’s in season, I’ll be out 4-5 days a week – 20-30 miles for each ride.
Scott
Wow. So you’re pretty serious, then?
William
I’d say so.
Scott
Tell us about your bike. I mean, for somebody who rides that much, you probably got a pretty expensive bike.
William
Are you interested in the bike that was destroyed or the one that I have now?
Scott
The one that you were riding when the video took place.
William
That was a 2012 Scott Foil 15 which – when I bought it, it was brand new – was a $5,000 bicycle. Its frame and fork are made out of carbon fiber. I’ve upgraded the wheels on it – I had carbon fiber wheels which was another $1,500. A custom-fit saddle, a custom-length stem – so they fit better, obviously – my own custom pedals. So, all in all, I probably had about $7,000 sunk into that bike. It had an electronic shifting, which is really nice because it never needs adjustment. The amazing thing about a bike like that is people would look at it and say, “Why would you spend that much money on a bicycle?” One of the responses I gave them is, “Well, that’s not even high-end anymore. A top-of-the-line bicycle back then was going for at least $10,000. Now, it’s probably around $13,000 to $15,000.”
Scott
I ride a bike myself, but nothing like that. You can tell if anyone is serious about biking – they don’t call it a seat, they call it a saddle. So obviously, you’re a serious cyclist. Here in the Tampa Bay area, every Saturday morning when I’m out, there are always large groups of cyclists – maybe 30 or 40 at a time – doing their Saturday morning ride. Do you do that?
William
Sometimes, I do group rides, although I mostly ride by myself.
Scott
I know some cyclists have front and backlights even during the daytime. What are your thoughts on that? Do you have that?
William
I don’t run lights during broad daylight. I have lights that I run on my commuter bike, and I only use them when it’s either dark, thick, foggy, or cloudy outside.
Scott
And do you always record videos while you’re riding?
William
I do. I’ve run a camera since 2013, and that was a result of seeing an increasing number of YouTube videos, ironically, of cyclists getting into hairy situations with motor vehicles – sometimes being hit. Most of the time, they were not taken seriously unless they had video evidence. Essentially, cyclists have been treated like second-class citizens as far as law enforcement and the court systems are concerned. Now that there are more and more action cameras cropping up, we’re actually starting to get a level of justice that would be on par with somebody who gets struck by a car if they are a pedestrian or if they are in a car themselves.
Scott
Yeah. I know dash cams in cars are becoming more common too. My wife and I have one on each of our cars.
William
Yeah, I run a dashcam on my car all the time as well.
Scott
Just as an aside, what model camera do you use? Is it a GoPro?
William
Actually, it’s not – a lot of people assumed that because GoPro is genius with marketing and they got the market penetration first. So, when everybody sees an action camera, they automatically assumed that it’s a GoPro. Mine’s actually a Sony brand. The model is the HDR-AS100V. At that time – I think I bought that camera in 2014 – for the money I paid, it was actually better than GoPro’s flagship model which I believe was the HERO 3.
Scott
That’s interesting. If you watch the video, it has a really good resolution, good sound, and everything. Personally, I’m currently in the market for something like that and I was assuming that GoPro is kind of the standard. So, I’ll take a look at some of the Sony models as well.
William
Granted, you’re also going to get quality if you buy a GoPro – there’s no question. You have to look for – to protect yourself legally – a camera with a video quality that is going to resolve a license plate, especially if you get passed by at the highest rate of speed. So for example, my camera has a maximum recording rate of 50 MB per second. You need an SD card that can handle that too, so you need to spend a little extra money there. Even though the resolution is 1080P, it doesn’t determine how good quality the image will be, it’s the recording data rate. Standard 1080P records at 15 megabits per second. So when you record at 50, you’ll get a lot more pictures and it’s much easier to see license plates. The other thing I would recommend too is you do want to have a decently high frame rate – mine record at 60 frames per second, some of the newer cameras out there can record up to 240 frames per second in 1080P – so that you’ll have many more opportunities to do a freeze-frame and capture the license plate – especially if you have shaky video. But then again, cameras, including mine, have some level of image stabilization, which has only gotten better since I bought mine.
Scott
When you mentioned recording data rate, that was one of my questions, “Is that the same thing as framerate” Obviously, they’re two different things. So, let’s talk about that day. Now, prior to the day that this happened, how many times had you gone through or approached that intersection?
William
Quite a few times. One of the issues that have been brought up by a lot of YouTube commenters was the fact that I went over the white stop line. Because of the fact that I’ve been at the intersection so many times, experience has taught me that stopping at the white line is the worst possible spot you can be. The reason is that when you stop at that white line and look south, which is towards the right, you can’t see anything – there are trees and foliage blocking your view because the owner of that property never bothers to trim them.
Scott
And there are signs there too…
William
Right. Plus a few telephone poles, high grass, and things of that nature. The first couple of times I went to that intersection, I actually had a couple of close calls because I was trying to be the good law-abiding cyclist who stops at the white line. But it turns out for practical purposes, that wasn’t the right thing to do. So, where I stopped – in my particular video that everybody has seen – was, at least, from my experience, the safest place I could be not just for my visibility but for others to see me.
Scott
From the video, you can tell that this is not, like, a 4-way intersection, this is more like a T-shaped intersection and you were approaching from the bottom of the T. So, you merely had to look left and look right. In the video, it looked like you waited quite a while there. Is that because you could see cars traveling way down the road and approaching the intersection?
William
Yes, Plus, I was in no rush to be anywhere. So, I just took a little break and waited for those cars that I saw coming from both ways to pass. There was nobody behind me as well, so it’s not like I was impeding anybody’s road.
Scott
I went on Google Maps and got a few different angles so that I could see down each direction of that road. Each way, left and right, is a long stretch of road, so it looks like cars would be coming at a pretty good rate of speed as they were approaching where you are.
William
It’s a 45 mile an hour zone, but people can easily do 50-60 miles an hour.
Scott
So obviously, you have to look out for yourself and protect yourself when approaching that kind of road.
William
Yeah.
Scott
Could you tell, from a distance, that the car coming from the right was a police cruiser?
William
Not initially. All I could see was that it was a Ford Explorer – that was how much I could pick out.
Scott
So, you saw him turning. Now, of course, you were just describing the things that blocked your vision as you look to the right, as he was approaching from your right and looking to the left, those same things would be blocking his vision from you if you had been back at that white line – right?
William
Correct. If I had been back at the white line, his view of me would have been obstructed.
Scott
Even if he was looking?
William
Exactly. The other thing that compounded this was even though I saw him approaching from the right, he didn’t have a turn signal on – or, at least, it did not appear that way. So, I assumed that he was going to continue straight.
Scott
As he was making the turn, it looked like you didn’t have any time to react at all.
William
No, I didn’t. There are some people who say that I had the opportunity to jump out of the way but it’s really not that simple. By the time your brain processes the fact that something is coming at you with that short of a distance, there was no time to even attempt moving out of the way. When you’re straddling a bicycle with one of your feet clipped into your pedals, that’s just not a practical decision to make.
Scott
This is Scott cutting in here. I want to play the audio portion of the video that William recorded of when he got hit so that you’ll, kind of, know what that was like as he’s telling the story. What you’ll hear is William’s bike as he came up to the intersection and waited. Then, you’ll hear one car go by. After that is when the police officer approached, turned left head-on into William, and knocked him off his bike.
(Car passes by)
(Police car approaches)
William
Woah! Woah!!! (Police car knocks onto William’s bicycle) Argh! Are you looking at your phone, officer?!
William
You Mother–! Argh! (Breathes heavily) 396. God damnit! Dude! Why are you texting?! I don’t care if–
Police Officer
I wasn’t texting, I was looking at my phone.
William
Either way!
Police Officer
Yeah, I know. That’s my bad.
William
Why are you doing that at a turn?
Police Officer
I wasn’t paying attention.
William
Officer… Holy shit, dude. Argh! I can walk. How do my arm look?
Police Officer
Looks fine.
William
How about this one?
Police Officer
You’re fine. There’s no break – I feel like breaking that right there.
William
(Breathes heavily) Jesus. My fucking legs. You got band aids?
Police Officer
Yup, I do. (Radios in)
Scott
Now, the camera doesn’t show this – how did the car make contact with your bike? Did it just run into the front tire or did it hit the side of you? How did that happen?
William
The front of his vehicle hit my front tire.
Scott
Okay. And that, kind of, knocked you off the bike?
William
Yeah, he spun me about 180-degrees counterclockwise.
Scott
Can you describe the moment from when you saw him until he unavoidably hit you? Can you just describe what happened there?
William
Well, when he was coming straight at me, immediately, my eyes picked out that he was not looking at me, he was looking straight down and holding his phone. That just gave me a sense of disbelief that somebody was doing that – especially a law enforcement officer who is a trained professional driver. When he hit me, I hit the ground, I landed on, mostly, my right side, which banged up my knee and right elbow. Obviously, I was pretty angry with him and used various expletives. I would ask him, “Why the F were you texting on your phone?” And he said, “I got another F-ing text from another officer.” Then, he pulled over right away, walked over, tried to gauge, I guess, the status of my injuries, and made sure everything else was okay. From there, he called the highway patrol in. That way, there wasn’t a conflict of interest because, obviously, him doing his own investigation would not be a good idea.
Scott
Yeah, he’d be a little biased there.
William
Right. What did end up happening, anyway, is one of his fellow police officers as well as the chief of police did show up on the scene. Obviously, they didn’t do any investigating, but they were just there to ensure that everything was done by the book.
Scott
It was interesting. After he walked over to you, you asked him, “How do my arm look? How’s my other arm?” and his answers were, “You’re fine.” It’s as if, like, he just did a full medical evaluation.
William
Yeah, I know. I did bleed on both arms. Obviously, I sought medical treatment afterward for some lingering issues in my arms.
Scott
Yeah. Because sometimes you can’t really tell the extent of your injuries at the time that it happens, obviously. In the video, I think you said you were just a little banged up but you were okay. Your bike was destroyed and you actually weren’t fine, right? I mean, you pursued this legally, correct?
William
Yes, I have. I never assumed that I was only banged and bruised because I knew that certain injuries might not manifest themselves until days, weeks, or even months after the fact. I did get myself checked out by a doctor the very next morning. In the following week, I started having some more problems, so I began to see an orthopedist and I saw him for quite some time. One of the points of contention that have also been raised is why did I refuse transport to the emergency room. This falls along the lines of what I was just talking about it – unless you have visibly broken bones or you hit your head or you’re unconscious, there is no reason to go to an ER. The point of an ER is to save your life, it’s not to diagnose other issues that only something like an MRI might be able to reveal – they don’t do that in ERs, they do a CT scan just to make sure that you’re not going to die.
Scott
And the ER may not have, at that time, the specialist needed to properly diagnose certain types of injuries as well, I think.
William
No, they never do. Plus, you usually need a referral just to get a specialist to look at you.
Scott
Right. When this happened, there were some other cars nearby. Were there other witnesses to what happened?
William
I guess, technically, yes. There were other witnesses but none of them stopped. They just assumed that everything was going to be taken care of.
Scott
Right, since the cops were already there.
William
Yeah. I mean, say what you will, but they have the fastest response time in the world.
Scott
Can you talk a little bit about when the EMTs showed up and how one of them tried to, maybe, do some work on your bike?
William
Yes. That’s a cluster of situations. There were 3 medics – 2 of them were attending to me in the ambulance. The one that you’re talking about in question – the one that screwed with my bike – was only sitting in the ambulance and typing down my information into a laptop, he didn’t render any actual medical assistance. After they had taken my vitals and patched me up, I got out of the ambulance and walked back to where my bike was resting. The EMT in question was already handling it. And then he asked me If I had any Allen wrenches in my saddlebag, which I thought was a stupid question because why else would I have a saddlebag in the first place – especially on a bike that’s this expensive. Obviously, I have some rudimentary knowledge of how to maintain my own bike. In fact, as a side note, I’ve got more than rudimentary knowledge. I can true my own wheels. I can do my own overhauls. I’ve got a full shop in my house, which he doesn’t know. Simultaneously, you don’t just walk up to somebody’s personal property and start messing with it without asking them first. When I told him that I didn’t want him touching my bike, he got into an attitude with me. Then, I tried to remind him, “Look, this was involved in a collision. If the police don’t care about it in their investigation, the insurance company, sure as hell, will. And they’re going to require that any piece of evidence involved is preserved as is until they make a determination as to what its worth is and write me a check.” So even though I called them an F-ing moron on video, I was doing him a favor. So, it was really ridiculous.
Scott
He was interfering or obstructing evidence in some way.
William
That is possible. I know that spoliation of evidence usually requires either malicious intent or gross negligence. I don’t know if that is able to be proven by a criminal prosecutor. Here’s an interesting after-effect of that particular incident… I posted that video, I believe, three days after the initial crash video, shortly after posting this second video…
Scott
You’re talking about the video of the EMT wanting to work on your bike?
William
Yes. So, shortly after posting the video of the EMT, I received a privacy complaint on YouTube and they’re all anonymous, so you never know who files them. It can be anybody in the world but, obviously, who had the motive to file a privacy complaint? Another thing is, when you file a privacy complaint, you have to specify the timestamps in the offending video where your privacy is violated. The timestamp in question is at 17 seconds, and the only thing you see at that timestamp is this guy’s face. There were no privacy complaints about the other EMTs in the video or the two police officers who had nameplates on their uniforms. And what gave me further reason to believe that it was him who filed this complaint was – I didn’t know his identity, I didn’t get his name and, frankly, I was willing to let it go – he just kept, kind of, poking the bear. I found out who he was because his family members gave him away. This is why you don’t interfere with an investigation. In my comment section, there were 2 people who commented – they had the same last name and YouTube handles. Once again, that could be anybody. But if you just hit the ‘I believe’ button for a second and pursue that line of thought, here’s what I found out.
If you go to the West Peculiar Fire Department’s website and go to the ‘Meet The Staff’ section, there is one staff who has that same last name. If you go search that name on Facebook or LinkedIn – by the way, he has an unusual first name which makes it really easy to find him – guess what? There’s his exact photo – it’s unmistakable. Then, if you dig further into his Facebook pictures, you’d find the same names of the two family members who tried to defend him – it’s his wife and his son. They use the same profile pictures in their YouTube profiles as they do on Facebook, so it all made sense.
Scott
When I was watching – I’ve only seen it, I think, a couple of times now – the second video with the EMT, it seems like his attitude was just to help. I mean, do you think he had any other kind of intent other than just trying to help you fix your bike?
William
I’m not going to say for sure, but again, if you’re just trying to be helpful, why would you change your attitude completely when the owner of the said property asked you politely not to mess with it? Not to mention, off-camera – well, he was still on camera but I did not post that video – he tried to defend himself by saying that he knows a lot about those kinds of bikes because, apparently, his son races, which is true – his son does race. But even if you are the father of a successful racer, that doesn’t mean that while you’re being paid to be an EMT, you’re also an on-site bicycle mechanic. If there are two cars involved in a collision and the front bumper on one looks a little messed up, you don’t walk up to it, tape it with some duct tape, and say, “Oh, you can probably drive that home.”
Scott
And if he’s familiar with that level of bike, then he probably should also know that people who have those kinds of bikes really don’t want other people messing with them.
William
There’s that element of it. If you actually do know that much about these kinds of bikes, especially, in this price range, if it’s involved in a collision with a motor vehicle, you do not ride it home. You should get it checked out by a reputable shop or at least by a frame expert before you even put your body weight on that again because – especially with carbon – carbon, obviously, does not bend, it only cracks. If there’s a small fracture in that frame that you can’t see and you put your body weight on it, it will compound and compound until, eventually, the frame will just split out from under you and, then, you will suffer from a much more serious injury than you would have.
Scott
Since that day, what happened? Was your bike completely destroyed or was it repairable?
William
It was totaled. I first took it to Dave’s bike shop in Raymore and they did a pretty thorough look over it. The one thing they did not do was inspect the inside of the frame because the shop owner felt like he didn’t have the capability of doing that. So, he recommended that I take my bike over to a guy named Steve Smithers who owns Smithers Customs in Olathe, Kansas. This is the carbon fiber expert in Kansas City. So, his primary business is making carbon fiber motorcycle parts. He also does carbon fiber bicycle frame repair. I took the bike to him. It wasn’t long before he said, “Oh, yeah. You see? Look at that.” And he pointed to behind the head tube – there’s a little bulge coming out – and he said, “You see that? That’s a compression fracture. So, the bike frame was totaled.” He wrote me up an estimate. He himself is still racing. He’s in his early 50s. He and a guy named Dan Kellerby also owned the patent for filament spun carbon. They have their own brand of wheels called FSC. They can make wheels that are of the same weight as their competitors’, but 30% stronger. So, this guy knows what he’s talking about.
Scott
It’s funny that he said that it was a compression fracture because I pictured a doctor whose patient is the bike. For a bike that’s this expensive, do you have insurance on it?
William
No. I mean, there are very few companies that actually offer bicycle-specific insurance. However, what you can do is – if the at-fault party’s insurance company is not being cooperative – you can, in fact, file a claim through your renters’ or homeowners’ insurance because it will fall under that.
Scott
Oh, I had no idea about that. So, did the police pay for the bike?
William
Technically, it was the insurance company, but they’re paying their premiums. So yeah, I guess, you could say that the police paid for it. The property damage claim which is, obviously, separate from your medical was, like, pulling teeth with these people. The Peculiar Police Department uses EMC insurance – or otherwise known as EMCASCO. Their particular insurance adjuster for the property damage was a woman who claimed that she knew something about these kinds of bikes, but when you started asking her slightly tough questions that a seasoned cyclist would know the answer to, she couldn’t answer them. Simultaneously, it was still their money. So, we had to convince them to pay what I demanded, which they never did. I gave them a demand of just over $7,800 for a new bike, with carbon wheels. The camera was damaged – I wanted that replaced. The pedals were damaged. In the end, they end up giving me $6,750. So, I had to, basically, work with that to replace all of my items.
Scott
Well, that’s the job of the claims adjuster – to pay is to make sure they pay as little as possible – right?
William
The really interesting thing is that this insurance company, among others, will start arguing with depreciation when the claim amount is above $5,000. I don’t know why they have that threshold, but they do.
Scott
Alright, so what happened to the officer that hit you?
William
Initially, as part of the procedure, he was placed on administrative leave. So, it’s a paid vacation. Obviously, they can’t presume guilt until it’s actually adjudicated. I didn’t hear anything from the Peculiar Police Department directly – they have had zero contact with me since this incident. I found out, basically, through the grapevine that he was no longer with the Peculiar police force. I did some digging around and I found that Chuck Wallace has a LinkedIn page that said that he left the police department sometime in August. I don’t know what he’s doing now. He might be helping to manage his family farm. Other than that, I have no idea what he’s up to. As far as criminal charges go, that’s another dragged-out process. So initially, Cass County started investigating and pulling the case together. Then, they had to wait for a judge to rule if they could actually prosecute but the judge said, “No, you can’t. There’s a conflict of interest.” So, they sent the case north to Platte County. Then, I was in contact with their prosecuting attorney. The single charge that he was getting was not filed until mid to late December. He did not have a court date yet. All he was getting charged with is careless and imprudent driving, which is a Class A misdemeanor. Worst case scenario, he would pay a $500 fine and get a little bit of jail time.
Scott
Well, I know the laws about distracted driving – whether it’s texting or whatever – vary from state to state and county to county. But he’s no longer a police officer, though?
William
Correct.
Scott
Have you ever heard from him? I mean, the town of Peculiar – obviously, that’s kind of an odd name – seems like a small town and you might run into somebody you know at the grocery store or something. Have you ever had any contact with him since then?
William
I have not. At that time, I was living in Raymore, which is the town directly north. Then, in late October, I moved out of Raymore. I’m now in actual Kansas City because I just bought a house here.
Scott
How far away is that?
William
From where I used to live in Raymore, it’s about 11 miles.
Scott
Okay. It would be a little bit awkward if you happen to just bump into him somewhere in public, right?
William
Yeah, I’m not sure how I would handle that.
Scott
Has this changed how you ride your bike on the road now? Have you changed anything?
William
No, because I’ve always been pretty aware of cars around me and what they do. I mean, this is one of the situations that really wasn’t avoidable.
Scott
It wasn’t avoidable for you. Obviously, he could have avoided that.
William
That’s what I meant. Obviously, if he had paid attention to the road, we wouldn’t be talking right now.
Scott
Man, as soon as something like that happens, I can’t imagine what went through his mind.
William
I know that he felt bad about it and he probably thought that he was screwed and that his career is over.
Scott
Your video on YouTube, at this point, has gotten over 11 million views. What if you hadn’t gotten this on video? How do you think it would have played out differently?
William
It’s hard to say. There are some cynics out there who think that this whole thing might have been swept under the rug by the police department and that they would try to levy the blame on me or, possibly, ticket me for something – I don’t know what. The fact is having the video is indispensable and clearly shows who was in the right, who was in the wrong – that’s one of the things I love about having action cameras. Even if you don’t get hit, it’s amazing to see how much more people handle themselves properly and behave when they know they’re being filmed.
Scott
And when you’re in a public place, you don’t have to get somebody’s permission to video, right?
William
Oh, no. Pretty much, universally, across the United States, video does not require consent if you’re in a public place or, basically, anywhere with no reasonable expectation of privacy. Now, as far as audio is concerned – that falls under what’s called wiretapping laws – that varies state to state. Again, if you’re in a public place or anywhere with no reasonable expectation of privacy, it’s always one-party consent. For intents and purposes, if you want to audio record somebody in Missouri or Kansas or 37 other states in a private setting, that’s one-party consent.
Scott
I know that there are a lot of videos on YouTube where policemen were insisting that someone stop videotaping.
William
They can insist all they want but it’s not legally actionable.
Scott
Right. All right. That’s a really interesting story. Obviously, for anyone who wants to go see it, I’ll have both of your YouTube videos – the one that shows your crash and the one that shows the EMT trying to fix your bike. We’ll have that on the website for this episode in the show notes, and I’ll have a link to your YouTube channel. Did you have a YouTube channel prior to this?
William
I did. I only had about 120 subscribers before this incident and, now, I have close to 14,000.
Scott
Nice. Hopefully, we’ll add a few more to that.
William
If anybody is also interested, on my channel, I have another video called “New bike day.” It’s when I went to a bike shop in Lee’s Summit, Missouri to pick up my new bicycle.
Scott
Nice. That’s a happy ending to this story, then.
William
Oh, yeah. I’d give the owner of that shop a lot of credit and, a lot of props because I told him about my constrained budget. I said, “Look, I need to be at a certain figure out the door. If I’m being unreasonable, just tell me.” He said, “Look. Normally, I can’t sell a brand new 2019 bike that hasn’t hit the stores yet for anything less than MSRP + tax, but I’ll call my Giant rep and corporate,” which he did. They knew about the story. Obviously, every bike shop owner in the country knows about it. Giant said, “Yeah, go ahead. Authorize that deal.” And that was that.
Scott
So you ended up with a nice bike!
William
Yeah, it’s definitely nicer than the one I have. It still has electronic shifting. All the cables are integrated, so you can’t even see them. They designed this bike to be fully aerodynamic. Another thing it has is a built-in power meter in the crank which, if you’re going to spend in that price range, is unheard of.
Scott
Can you describe what is a power meter in the crank?
William
A power meter consists of a set of strain gauges. It sends a wireless signal to a compatible receiver and shows how many watts of power you’re producing.
Scott
That’s interesting. I never heard of that. I know my bike doesn’t have that.
William
Well, they can be very expensive. Some power meters by the brand called Quarq can run almost $2,000. The ‘bargain brand’ Stages power meter, which is one crank arm, runs $700. So, for this to be included on a bike that retails for $5,880 was pretty impressive.
Scott
And what’s the status of pursuing the payment of your medical bills?
William
As of today, we finally reached a settlement amount. All I have to do is sign a release and they’ll send a check to me.
Scott
Can’t ask for more than that, right?
William
Well, I could ask for a hell lot more money, but I know they won’t pay it.
Scott
Take it and run. Well, William, I appreciate you sharing the story. Like I said, I’ll have links to everything we talked about in the show notes. I’m glad that it worked out for you. I’m sure happy because it could have been a lot worse, right?
William
Certainly could have been.
Scott
Thanks for sharing your story with us.
William
Thanks for having me on.
Scott
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