Is Brannan Fix the best cyclocross racer to come out of Northern Colorado? No, that title would go to Georgia Gould, Meredith Miller or Amanda Miller who were among the best racers in the world at the time. He is however the best male cyclocross racer to call Fort Collins home. We’ve had our fair share of prodigies with riders like Alex Coelho, Chris Stockburger and Skyler Trujillo who all podiumed at or won junior, U23 or National Championships. None of them were able to maintain that momentum into the Elites, however. Kacey Campbell briefly appeared to have cracked the code with some solid UCI results but lack of support made chasing points across the country difficult. Steve Stefko has carried the torch most recently but he’s old, washed up, and never had any aspirations of becoming a professional cyclocross racer in the first place. He’s content with his 40 hours per week job, winning local Elite/Masters races and going for master’s national podiums.
Brannan has the ability, dedication and support to go the distance. In 2017 he won collegiate national championships, was 2nd in the 2018 U23 championship race (one spot ahead of current Elite National Champion, Eric Brunner), and won the Alfalfa’s Eldora US Open (ahead of Brunner, Hecht, Haidet, Kaiser…), a UCI C2, in 2018. After taking most of 2020 off due to COVID, and with the support of a handful of sponsors, his fiancée (congrats guys) Zoë Dunn, and dad of the decade Matt Fix, he put together one hell of a 2021 season. During the three-month cross season, the Fix Racing team put 20K+ miles in their Toyota Tundra and their custom-built cargo trailer hitting 17 races and finishing in the top ten 13 times. 3rd and 4th places at The Northampton International of Cyclocross would rank as his best results of the year. Their dog Lily was popular in the cyclocross tent cities that popped up every weekend and made friends with every ‘cross dog East of the Missouri (with the exception of Chicago because ‘cross dogs weren’t allowed at the park). Since Brannan opted not to make the trip to Europe for the Kerstperiode he dropped a few spots in UCI rankings and unfortunately won’t be racing Worlds in Fayetteville later this month. The top 7 UCI-ranked US Elite men were selected for the 38 rider US Worlds roster, Brannan is ranked 10th in the US but two riders ahead of him were selected for the U23 team. By my math, he missed the team by one spot.
I think a breakthrough season is still on the horizon for B but 2021 was a great indicator for what is yet to come for the best male cyclocross racer Fort Collins has ever produced.
