The best bit of the national road championships week - alongside the racing - is finding out who will be wearing their nation's colours on their jerseys for the next year. With the Tour de France and the Tour de France Femmes just around the corner, kit suppliers will be working overtime to have new jerseys ready for those lucky riders who get to wear different colours for the next 12 months.
There are teams that go all out for their national champions, like Groupama-FDJ for example, and there are some that begrudgingly attach some national colours to the trade kit, such as UAE Team Emirates, but all new jerseys are fun, right?
Fred Wright (Bahrain Victorious) and Pfeiffer Georgi (DSM-Firmenich) will be present at the Tour de France and the Tour de France Femmes, respectively, in the British national champion's bands after winning their road races. Either are potential stage winners too, so expect the red, white and blue jerseys to be very visible.
Similarly, both the men's and women's US national road champions - Chloé Dygert (Canyon-SRAM) and Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek) should be present at the Tour de France Femmes and the Tour de France in the stars and stripes. Time will tell just quite how brash and Captain America those designs are.
Other new national champions to keep an eye out for at the men's Tour de France include Dylan van Baarle (Jumbo-Visma), who will be in the red, white and blue of the Netherlands; Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ), in the French tricolor; Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) who will be leading a GC charge in the Danish jersey; Alexey Lutsenko (Astana Qazaqstan) back in the white of Kazakhstan's distinctive jersey; Gregor Mühlberger (Movistar) who will have Austria's eagle on his chest; Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) in red, yellow and black for Germany; and Alex Kirsch (Lidl-Trek) another in red, white and blue, this time of Luxembourg.
The biggest name who will be in a national jersey is possibly the biggest name at the race full-stop, Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates). Hopefully the team do Slovenia's flag justice, although if he has a good Tour there won't be much seen of the kit anyway, as he will be in the white or yellow jersey.
In the Tour's single individual time trial, on stage 16, there will be a smattering of new national jerseys on show. These include Lutsenko, Kirsch, and Pogačar again, although the latter will hope to be in the yellow jersey. New national TT champions also include Kasper Asgreen (Soudal Quick-Step) for Denmark, Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) for Belgium, Søren Wærenskjold (Uno-X) for Norway, Jonathan Castroviejo (Ineos Grenadiers) for Spain, and Nils Politt (Bora-Hansgrohe) for Germany.
Meanwhile, there will many riders in new jerseys at the Tour de France Femmes later in July - the kit designers will have longer to work if the owner is not riding the Giro d'Italia Donne.
The most prominent of these is Demi Vollering (SD Worx), who is one of the favourites for the GC at the Tour, but will start off in the colours of the Dutch flag. Mavi García (Liv Racing TeqFind) will continue to wear the Spanish colours for the fourth year in a row; Victoire Berteau (Cofidis) became French national champion for a first time, aged 22; Liane Lippert (Movistar) defended her German title, so will continue in the same kit; Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) is back in the Italian flag after a year off; the same is true of Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx), who returns into the red, yellow and black of Belgium.
Also into a national jersey at the Tour, if selected, will be Marlen Reusser (SD Worx) in the Swiss cross, Christine Majerus (SD Worx), who retained her Luxembourg crown for another year, and Canada's Alison Jackson (EF Education-TIBCO-SVB). There is also a first individual time trial at the Tour de France Femmes, so expect to see bonus national champs jerseys.
Riders who might be present for that ITT in Pau at the end of July include Riejanne Markus (Jumbo-Visma) of the Netherlands, Lizzie Holden (UAE Team ADQ) of Great Britain, Majerus, Dygert, Longo Borghini and Kopecky, Emma Norsgaard (Movistar) of Denmark, Urška Žigart (Jayco AlUla) of Slovenia, Mieke Kröger (Human Powered Health) of Germany, and Anna Kiesenhofer (Israel-Premier Tech-Roland) of Austria.
There are, of course, new national champions who will not be present at the Tour de France or Tour de France Femmes, the most prominent of which is Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step), the world champion, who won the Belgian National Road Championships on Sunday.
While he is still world champion Evenepoel will be in the rainbow bands rather than the Belgian flag, but it will be a while until we see him in a usual trade team kit.
Another new national champion of note is Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost), who won't be at the Tour de France. However, the new Irish champion sealed his victory after a solo attack of almost 100km in County Tyron on Sunday. Some season the 22-year-old is having.
