Powell and Stetson-Lee win super D national championship

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Seamus Powell and Teal Stetson-Lee (Luna) won the elite super D races at Bear Creek Resort in Macungie, Pennsylvania, on Sunday morning. Both riders claimed their first career elite mountain bike national titles.

Men

The second man down the mountain, Casey Williams (Whole Athlete/Specialized) set a fast time that would hold up well.

"I made a few mistakes, but who didn't?" said Williams. "It started out super fast through those trees, and it was super tight and rocky, and then you kind of broke out onto an open road. That's where I pedalled as fast as I could all the way to the finish."

Williams didn't have much time to spend in the hot seat before Powell flew across the line, dropping the bar with a faster time.

"It was a perfect run for me. I rode really hard - that's the only thing you can do in these things. You don't want to over-think it," said Powell.

Powell's strategy was to keep it conservative up top in the more technical section and then open the throttle on the gravel road part. "My goal was to get through the first section without any flats or mechanicals and the rest of the track was pretty mellow and pretty straightforward," he said.

It was Powell's second national title of the weekend. "Winning is fun. I won singlespeed and I got a super D now, too. Who would have expected that?"

"Local" downhill rider Neko Mulally (Trek World Racing) had come out to race the super D since he had the week off from the World Cup and Pro GRT races. He put in a good run to bump Williams into third place, but he couldn't unseat Powell.

"This event is only a few minutes from my house, and I figured I had to come out because I didn't have another race. It's been a lot of fun," said Mulally, who was the only rider to describe the course as "not very technical".

"It was the kind of course that required a lot of power. It was fun to come out and mix it up with these XC boys. When you're tired, you don't feel like you hit sections as good in the race as you do in practice. That's how it is in downhill too. When you flatten it out and make it longer, it exaggerates that even more." Mulally heads next weekend to the World Cup in Andorra.

Many riders followed, including pre-race favorite Carl Decker (Giant) and yesterday's top five cross country finisher Spencer Paxson (Kona), but no one could unseat the top three.

Women

Going into the race yesterday's cross country winner Lea Davison (Specialized) was the favorite, but Teal Stetson-Lee managed to go faster than Davison. Both riders said they were feeling the effects of yesterday's effort.

"It was a really awesome run," said Stetson-Lee. "It was a little hard after how tired my legs were from yesterday's cross country race. There were two or three little uphill sections, and I could really feel it when I was trying to put the hammer down."

"I got a second wind when I saw Lea through the trees a couple of switchbacks below me. I was like 'ok, you don't want this to be one of those races where you are like 'oh I could have made up those two seconds somewhere'."

"It was very redeeming to ride the uphill portion of the cross country course downhill. That was probably the highlight of the whole run."

Stetson-Lee was delighted to earn her first elite national mountain bike title but noted the tiny size of her field. Just 11 women started. "It's a relatively small field, which is kind of a bummer. It'd be nice to see more women out here. I feel like while I'm at nationals, I might as well do every event I can and maybe make one of them count, like this one."

Davison enjoyed the course and was impressed with Stetson-Lee's ride.

"That was hard, but fun. It was a technical, good course. I started behind Nina [Baum], and Teal was following me by about 30 seconds," said Davison. "There were some switchbacks where I thought Teal was gaining on me and I had better pick it up."

"I'm happy for Teal. She deserves a jersey. I was foiled in my triple, but it's ok, I got the jersey I wanted yesterday."

Rose Grant finished in third place ahead of Lauren Catlin (Durango Devo) in fourth.

"It was sweet. That was my best run yet. I was crashing a bit during practice, but I kept it together for this one," said Catlin. "I was trying to be a little conservative since I have the short track this afternoon. I flatted in my [U23] cross country race, so I wanted to do another race and finish it."

The racers will contest the short track this afternoon.

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