Matt Crane—2016 Fascinating Person #11

Our fascinating go-to for everything cycling-related.

February 22, 2016; 10:03 AM • by Susan Howson

Meet each of the Fascinating People we’ve invited to speak for eight minutes on whatever they want. It goes down on Wednesday, February 24th. Learn more here but know that, sadly, we are SOLD OUT! Stay tuned to Twitter, though, because we will surely be enthusing all over the place about the pearls of wisdom they’ll all be casting.

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I can barely think about the Big Bike Race™ without a little wistful lip quivering.

We met Matt Crane because we wanted someone to explain to us just how to watch a dang bike race–not like “Stand by a road and direct your retinas to the cyclists upon it.” We knew that much! But we wanted to be active watchers and understand all the drama. I went to my go-to for everything cycling-related for this information, and he said, “You know who you’ve gotta talk to? Matt Crane.”

Matt–who is a former pro cyclist, current user of cycling to transform kids’ lives, and all-around super nice guy–not only explained it all to us, but he did so in such a way that we went from being mildly interested to thoroughly stoked. And we used that knowledge all over the place!

Then it all came to an end. And with that end came a lot of negative-vibe reports from media outlets that grudgingly admitted the races were somewhat fun but not NEARLY as beneficial to the Richmond as promised, based on anecdotal data from business owners they had no business using as a representative of the whole. I decided to touch base with Matt to see how he felt, and both of us yelled a lot, sighed a lot, and said a lot of curse words.

Thanks, Matt, for having many spirited conversations with me, for helping out so many people via Richmond Cycling Corps, and for agreeing to come lend some of that passion to RVANews readers on Wednesday night.

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Read all the stories that feature our 2016 Fascinating People!