2026 National Road Race Championships: preview and startlists
The championships end on Sunday with their hardest test, on the Aberystwyth roads that crowned Samuel Watson and Millie Couzens a year ago. Both defend; neither will have it easy.
The national road race title is British cycling’s most coveted domestic jersey: one day, one race, and 12 months in the champion’s bands for whoever survives Aberystwyth’s repeated climbs and seafront finish on Sunday 28 June.
The road race is the blue-riband event of the National Road Championships: the title that carries the deepest history, the greatest prestige, and the most visible prize. Unlike the time trial, where the strongest rider against the clock usually gets their due, the road race asks for almost everything at once — endurance, timing, tactical instinct, nerve, team strength, and the ability to suffer when the race begins to splinter.
It is also the championship that follows its winner most visibly through the season. The national champion’s jersey is not a trophy put away after the podium ceremony; it is worn in the peloton for the next 12 months, a marker of status every time its holder lines up. For British riders, winning it places them in a lineage that runs through some of the defining names of the sport, from Mark Cavendish, Lizzie Deignan and Laura Kenny to more recent champions such as Pfeiffer Georgi, Ethan Hayter, Samuel Watson and Millie Couzens.
The race has never been only about reputation, though. Its appeal lies in its volatility. The strongest rider does not always win; the smartest, bravest or best-supported rider often does. Breakaways can survive, favourites can hesitate, teams can overplay their hands, and the jersey can be decided in a moment of instinct as much as a display of strength. That is what gives the national road race its particular edge: it is a championship, but it is also a proper one-day race.
Image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
This year’s edition returns to Aberystwyth for the second year of a three-year stay in Ceredigion, revisiting much of the same hard, attritional terrain that shaped last year’s races. British Cycling has increasingly favoured courses that reward aggression over bunch-sprint calculation, and this route sits firmly in that tradition. The repeated climbs inland, followed by a testing finishing circuit above the promenade, should make this another race of selection rather than containment.
The elite and under-23 titles will again be decided within the same races, giving the day a double edge. Last year, Samuel Watson left Wales with the elite men’s jersey, while Matthew Brennan took the under-23 title; in the women’s race, Millie Couzens claimed both. This time, the same roads offer another chance for established professionals, rising WorldTour talent and the best of the domestic scene to converge on one of the most significant days in the British racing calendar.
The route
After a processional roll-out along the seafront, the race heads inland towards Llanfarian and Abermad, on towards Trawsgoed, on a 23.4-kilometre anticlockwise main loop, returning to Aberystwyth past Y Gors.
The men face 187 kilometres and roughly 2,870 metres of climbing; the women, 128 kilometres and around 1,970 — about 15 metres of vertical for every kilometre raced with a punchy main-loop climb to be ridden before the finishing circuit even begins.
The men ride that loop five times, the women three, before both transfer to a 12.4-kilometre finishing circuit on the promenade — five laps for the men, four for the women.
The numbers are heavier than the seafront setting suggests. The defining feature of the main loop is the 1.2-kilometre climb on the B4340, which has a maximum gradient of 14.9 per cent according to VeloViewer — a climb that, ridden five times by the men and three by the women, will do real damage long before the finish.
The finishing circuit then offers no respite: a climb through Southgate, with a listed maximum of 8.7 per cent on every lap, followed by the narrow, technical descent from Moriah back to the A44. It is the profile of a hard one-day race rather than a pure climber’s course — endurance to survive the repeated climbing, then a punch left for the closing circuit. Pure sprinters will struggle to be there at the finish.
Timings and running order
The road races take place on Sunday 28 June, starting and finishing on the Aberystwyth seafront. The women’s race opens the day at 08:45, the men start at 13:45. Both races are shown live on British Cycling’s YouTube channel and on TNT Sports, with coverage from 08:30 for the women and 13:30 for the men.
Riders to watch: men
Samuel Watson (NetCompany Ineos) defends the title he won with an audacious last-lap solo, and arrives in form: he opened 2026 by winning the Tour Down Under prologue and wearing the leader’s jersey, Ineos’s first WorldTour victory of the season. A rider who can climb, time-trial and read a finish, he is the type this course rewards, and he has the strongest team around him. Ben Turner may be the pick of his lieutenants — or another card in his own right: a fast finisher who can survive a hard day, and a Grand Tour stage winner after taking stage 4 of last year’s Vuelta a España. Connor Swift, the 2018 champion and a Giro finisher this spring, and Ben Swift, who won in 2019 and 2021, give Ineos the numbers to control the race as they did twelve months ago.
Image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
The most likely man to deny him is Matthew Brennan (Visma–Lease a Bike), second here in 2025 and, at 20, already among the most exciting one-day riders Britain has produced in years. His past 18 months read like a veteran’s palmarès: GP de Denain and the Tour of Norway overall last season, then a Tour Down Under stage in January and Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne — the first British win there since Cavendish in 2015. If a reduced group reaches the seafront together, he is the fastest finisher likely to be in it. Ethan Hayter (Soudal Quick-Step) is another who tends to thrive here: the 2024 road champion and a four-time time-trial winner, doubling up after Thursday’s win in Lampeter, and a rider who has said nationals bring out his best. Like several of the WorldTour men, though, he comes to Wales in the middle of a Tour de France build rather than at a peak.
Beyond the favourites, the course rewards the aggressors and the survivors. Ethan Vernon (NSN Cycling Team) was third here last year — a sprinter quick enough to win from a group, but durable enough to get over these climbs and reach one. Fred Wright (Pinarello–Q36.5), a former champion and one of the most combative Classics riders in the country, is Tour-bound and may be finding form rather than holding it; Lukas Nerurkar (EF Education–EasyPost), a young climber, is the nearest thing to a pure mountain rider left in the field.
Callum Thornley (Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe), last year’s under-23 time-trial champion and road silver medallist, now racing as an elite, has been racing hard into late June and will fancy the climbing. Watch, too, for Owain Doull (Visma–Lease a Bike), a vastly experienced Cardiff-born Olympic champion on home roads, and Adam Howell (Bourg-en-Bresse Ain Cyclisme), the 2025 National Road Series champion and our domestic rider of the year last season, now racing in France. He continues to progress apace, his third place at the Ronde de l’Isard a clear indication of his continued promise.
Adam Howell. Image: Olly Hassell/SWpix.com
The WorldTour and ProTeam depth runs well beyond Ineos and Visma: Bob Donaldson (Team Jayco AlUla), the 2024 under-23 champion, Max Walker (EF Education–EasyPost), Sean Flynn (Picnic PostNL) and Lewis Askey (NSN Cycling Team) all add to the field’s depth, while Adam Lewis (APS Pro Cycling), a vastly experienced rider, is an outside name worth noting. For the home riders, Thomas Armstrong (Wheelbase CabTech Castelli), Danylo Riwnyj (Foran CT) and the JAKROO Handsling pair Oliver Dawson and Harrison Dainty are the kind who could emulate Alex Beldon’s eighth place last year.
The startlist also carries names whose participation appears doubtful: Josh Tarling, ruled out of recent racing by a broken collarbone; Max Poole, whose season has been disrupted after his return from Epstein-Barr virus; and Joe Blackmore, who has not raced this season because of persistent knee pain.
There is a second title settled within the race: the under-23 championship, awarded to the best-placed under-23 finisher. Brennan is the overwhelming favourite to keep the jersey he won here last year, a contender for the elite podium who would be very hard to dislodge if he is anywhere near the front. The stronger contest is behind him, among riders making their way at teams abroad. Noah Hobbs (EF Education–EasyPost), a neo-professional at WorldTour level, is the pick of them: already a winner at Heistse Pijl this month, and third in sprints at both Volta a Catalunya and the Pays de la Loire Tour this season. Elliot Rowe (Visma–Lease a Bike Development), a Scot from the same junior team as Brennan, won a stage of the Tour de l’Avenir last year and another at the Alpes Isère Tour this spring, a versatile fast finisher whose profile fits this course. His teammate William Smith climbs well enough to be there at the finish.
Riders to watch: women
Millie Couzens (Fenix–Premier Tech) defends the title she won by beating Pfeiffer Georgi, Anna Henderson and Josie Nelson in a four-up sprint on this seafront last year, and comes in as a favourite: she was part of the British team pursuit squad that set a world record on the way to European track gold this season, a sprinter who climbs well enough to survive a hard day, the exact combination this course demands. Her position has only firmed up with the loss of Cat Ferguson (Movistar Team), seventh here last year and the rider many expected to push her hardest — the 20-year-old has been ruled out of the Tour de France Femmes after being diagnosed with two ankle fractures, and will not start in Aberystwyth.
Image: Thomas Maheux/SWpix.com
Pfeiffer Georgi (Picnic PostNL) will want to settle a score. The three-time champion was denied a fourth, and a third in a row, by Couzens twelve months ago; she is reliably strong on the punchy courses British Cycling favours, and Picnic bring the numbers to shape a race. Chief among them is Josie Nelson, who has had the best start of her career in 2026 — second and third on stages at the Tour Down Under, then second at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race — and who was fourth here last year: a fast finisher who climbs, and a card in her own right rather than a foil for Georgi. Anna Henderson (Lidl–Trek) was third last year, another national road-race podium, and brings the kind of engine a course like this rewards: she won a stage of the 2025 Giro d’Italia Women and wore the leader’s jersey, and adds Olympic time-trial silver to her record.
Zoe Bäckstedt (Canyon–SRAM zondacrypto), the defending national time-trial champion, arrives on the sharpest form of all: she won a stage of the Tour de Suisse Women days ago, backed that up by finishing second in the time trial there, and races on home Welsh roads having finished sixth here in 2025. Carys Lloyd (Movistar Team), at 19, already has a WorldTour win this season after outsprinting a field including Lorena Wiebes at the Ronde van Brugge, and leads Movistar’s challenge in Ferguson’s absence. Imogen Wolff (Visma–Lease a Bike) was ninth here last year but is coming back from concussion so is not expected to be in top shape. Erin Boothman (Liv AlUla Jayco Women’s Continental Team), on the other hand, took a maiden professional winner this spring in Luxembourg, and had a resounding win in the under-23 time trial; she is flying. Alice Towers (EF Education–Oatly), the 2022 champion who relishes exactly this kind of attritional one-day course, has the legs for the front group. Lauren Dickson (FDJ–SUEZ), so often in the mix here, misses out after breaking her collarbone at the Tour de Suisse.
For the domestic audience, Morven Yeoman (DAS-Hutchinson) is the standard-bearer: winner of the women’s Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix, leader of both the women’s National Road Series and the Rapha Super-League, and a fast, aggressive finisher who has been among the defining riders of the British season. Anna Morris (Private Member) is a serious contender on current domestic form, with a string of wins this spring and a podium at the Lincoln Grand Prix. DAS-Hutchinson surround Yeoman with strength — Josie Knight, Sophie Lewis, Katie Scott, Lucy Lee and Noémie Thomson, winner of the CiCLE Classic that opened the series — giving them one of the strongest domestic squads in the race. Handsling Alba Development Road Team, led by Tour of the Reservoir winner Kate Richardson and the returning Izzy Sharp, are the other main counterweight. Flora Perkins (Fenix–Premier Tech) is a strong rider in her own right as much as Couzens’s most important helper.
The women’s race carries the same second prize, and this year it is wide open: last year’s under-23 winner, Couzens, has aged out of the category, and Ferguson, who would have started clear favourite, is injured. Bäckstedt inherits that billing, the defending national time-trial champion arriving as the form rider of the field on a course that suits her. Lloyd and Boothman, two fast finishers in form, are her nearest challengers; Wolff sits a little behind them this season, with Eilidh Shaw (UAE Development Team), eighth here last year, next in line. The best of the home-based under-23s is Yeoman, whose National Road Series lead makes her the leading domestic name in the category.
The national road race title is British cycling’s most coveted domestic jersey: one day, one race, and 12 months in the champion’s bands for whoever survives Aberystwyth’s repeated climbs and seafront finish on Sunday 28 June.
Here is our preview.
Featured image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
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What is it?
The road race is the blue-riband event of the National Road Championships: the title that carries the deepest history, the greatest prestige, and the most visible prize. Unlike the time trial, where the strongest rider against the clock usually gets their due, the road race asks for almost everything at once — endurance, timing, tactical instinct, nerve, team strength, and the ability to suffer when the race begins to splinter.
It is also the championship that follows its winner most visibly through the season. The national champion’s jersey is not a trophy put away after the podium ceremony; it is worn in the peloton for the next 12 months, a marker of status every time its holder lines up. For British riders, winning it places them in a lineage that runs through some of the defining names of the sport, from Mark Cavendish, Lizzie Deignan and Laura Kenny to more recent champions such as Pfeiffer Georgi, Ethan Hayter, Samuel Watson and Millie Couzens.
The race has never been only about reputation, though. Its appeal lies in its volatility. The strongest rider does not always win; the smartest, bravest or best-supported rider often does. Breakaways can survive, favourites can hesitate, teams can overplay their hands, and the jersey can be decided in a moment of instinct as much as a display of strength. That is what gives the national road race its particular edge: it is a championship, but it is also a proper one-day race.
This year’s edition returns to Aberystwyth for the second year of a three-year stay in Ceredigion, revisiting much of the same hard, attritional terrain that shaped last year’s races. British Cycling has increasingly favoured courses that reward aggression over bunch-sprint calculation, and this route sits firmly in that tradition. The repeated climbs inland, followed by a testing finishing circuit above the promenade, should make this another race of selection rather than containment.
The elite and under-23 titles will again be decided within the same races, giving the day a double edge. Last year, Samuel Watson left Wales with the elite men’s jersey, while Matthew Brennan took the under-23 title; in the women’s race, Millie Couzens claimed both. This time, the same roads offer another chance for established professionals, rising WorldTour talent and the best of the domestic scene to converge on one of the most significant days in the British racing calendar.
The route
After a processional roll-out along the seafront, the race heads inland towards Llanfarian and Abermad, on towards Trawsgoed, on a 23.4-kilometre anticlockwise main loop, returning to Aberystwyth past Y Gors.
The men face 187 kilometres and roughly 2,870 metres of climbing; the women, 128 kilometres and around 1,970 — about 15 metres of vertical for every kilometre raced with a punchy main-loop climb to be ridden before the finishing circuit even begins.
The men ride that loop five times, the women three, before both transfer to a 12.4-kilometre finishing circuit on the promenade — five laps for the men, four for the women.
The numbers are heavier than the seafront setting suggests. The defining feature of the main loop is the 1.2-kilometre climb on the B4340, which has a maximum gradient of 14.9 per cent according to VeloViewer — a climb that, ridden five times by the men and three by the women, will do real damage long before the finish.
The finishing circuit then offers no respite: a climb through Southgate, with a listed maximum of 8.7 per cent on every lap, followed by the narrow, technical descent from Moriah back to the A44. It is the profile of a hard one-day race rather than a pure climber’s course — endurance to survive the repeated climbing, then a punch left for the closing circuit. Pure sprinters will struggle to be there at the finish.
Timings and running order
The road races take place on Sunday 28 June, starting and finishing on the Aberystwyth seafront. The women’s race opens the day at 08:45, the men start at 13:45. Both races are shown live on British Cycling’s YouTube channel and on TNT Sports, with coverage from 08:30 for the women and 13:30 for the men.
Riders to watch: men
Samuel Watson (NetCompany Ineos) defends the title he won with an audacious last-lap solo, and arrives in form: he opened 2026 by winning the Tour Down Under prologue and wearing the leader’s jersey, Ineos’s first WorldTour victory of the season. A rider who can climb, time-trial and read a finish, he is the type this course rewards, and he has the strongest team around him. Ben Turner may be the pick of his lieutenants — or another card in his own right: a fast finisher who can survive a hard day, and a Grand Tour stage winner after taking stage 4 of last year’s Vuelta a España. Connor Swift, the 2018 champion and a Giro finisher this spring, and Ben Swift, who won in 2019 and 2021, give Ineos the numbers to control the race as they did twelve months ago.
The most likely man to deny him is Matthew Brennan (Visma–Lease a Bike), second here in 2025 and, at 20, already among the most exciting one-day riders Britain has produced in years. His past 18 months read like a veteran’s palmarès: GP de Denain and the Tour of Norway overall last season, then a Tour Down Under stage in January and Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne — the first British win there since Cavendish in 2015. If a reduced group reaches the seafront together, he is the fastest finisher likely to be in it. Ethan Hayter (Soudal Quick-Step) is another who tends to thrive here: the 2024 road champion and a four-time time-trial winner, doubling up after Thursday’s win in Lampeter, and a rider who has said nationals bring out his best. Like several of the WorldTour men, though, he comes to Wales in the middle of a Tour de France build rather than at a peak.
Beyond the favourites, the course rewards the aggressors and the survivors. Ethan Vernon (NSN Cycling Team) was third here last year — a sprinter quick enough to win from a group, but durable enough to get over these climbs and reach one. Fred Wright (Pinarello–Q36.5), a former champion and one of the most combative Classics riders in the country, is Tour-bound and may be finding form rather than holding it; Lukas Nerurkar (EF Education–EasyPost), a young climber, is the nearest thing to a pure mountain rider left in the field.
Callum Thornley (Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe), last year’s under-23 time-trial champion and road silver medallist, now racing as an elite, has been racing hard into late June and will fancy the climbing. Watch, too, for Owain Doull (Visma–Lease a Bike), a vastly experienced Cardiff-born Olympic champion on home roads, and Adam Howell (Bourg-en-Bresse Ain Cyclisme), the 2025 National Road Series champion and our domestic rider of the year last season, now racing in France. He continues to progress apace, his third place at the Ronde de l’Isard a clear indication of his continued promise.
The WorldTour and ProTeam depth runs well beyond Ineos and Visma: Bob Donaldson (Team Jayco AlUla), the 2024 under-23 champion, Max Walker (EF Education–EasyPost), Sean Flynn (Picnic PostNL) and Lewis Askey (NSN Cycling Team) all add to the field’s depth, while Adam Lewis (APS Pro Cycling), a vastly experienced rider, is an outside name worth noting. For the home riders, Thomas Armstrong (Wheelbase CabTech Castelli), Danylo Riwnyj (Foran CT) and the JAKROO Handsling pair Oliver Dawson and Harrison Dainty are the kind who could emulate Alex Beldon’s eighth place last year.
The startlist also carries names whose participation appears doubtful: Josh Tarling, ruled out of recent racing by a broken collarbone; Max Poole, whose season has been disrupted after his return from Epstein-Barr virus; and Joe Blackmore, who has not raced this season because of persistent knee pain.
There is a second title settled within the race: the under-23 championship, awarded to the best-placed under-23 finisher. Brennan is the overwhelming favourite to keep the jersey he won here last year, a contender for the elite podium who would be very hard to dislodge if he is anywhere near the front. The stronger contest is behind him, among riders making their way at teams abroad. Noah Hobbs (EF Education–EasyPost), a neo-professional at WorldTour level, is the pick of them: already a winner at Heistse Pijl this month, and third in sprints at both Volta a Catalunya and the Pays de la Loire Tour this season. Elliot Rowe (Visma–Lease a Bike Development), a Scot from the same junior team as Brennan, won a stage of the Tour de l’Avenir last year and another at the Alpes Isère Tour this spring, a versatile fast finisher whose profile fits this course. His teammate William Smith climbs well enough to be there at the finish.
Riders to watch: women
Millie Couzens (Fenix–Premier Tech) defends the title she won by beating Pfeiffer Georgi, Anna Henderson and Josie Nelson in a four-up sprint on this seafront last year, and comes in as a favourite: she was part of the British team pursuit squad that set a world record on the way to European track gold this season, a sprinter who climbs well enough to survive a hard day, the exact combination this course demands. Her position has only firmed up with the loss of Cat Ferguson (Movistar Team), seventh here last year and the rider many expected to push her hardest — the 20-year-old has been ruled out of the Tour de France Femmes after being diagnosed with two ankle fractures, and will not start in Aberystwyth.
Pfeiffer Georgi (Picnic PostNL) will want to settle a score. The three-time champion was denied a fourth, and a third in a row, by Couzens twelve months ago; she is reliably strong on the punchy courses British Cycling favours, and Picnic bring the numbers to shape a race. Chief among them is Josie Nelson, who has had the best start of her career in 2026 — second and third on stages at the Tour Down Under, then second at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race — and who was fourth here last year: a fast finisher who climbs, and a card in her own right rather than a foil for Georgi. Anna Henderson (Lidl–Trek) was third last year, another national road-race podium, and brings the kind of engine a course like this rewards: she won a stage of the 2025 Giro d’Italia Women and wore the leader’s jersey, and adds Olympic time-trial silver to her record.
Zoe Bäckstedt (Canyon–SRAM zondacrypto), the defending national time-trial champion, arrives on the sharpest form of all: she won a stage of the Tour de Suisse Women days ago, backed that up by finishing second in the time trial there, and races on home Welsh roads having finished sixth here in 2025. Carys Lloyd (Movistar Team), at 19, already has a WorldTour win this season after outsprinting a field including Lorena Wiebes at the Ronde van Brugge, and leads Movistar’s challenge in Ferguson’s absence. Imogen Wolff (Visma–Lease a Bike) was ninth here last year but is coming back from concussion so is not expected to be in top shape. Erin Boothman (Liv AlUla Jayco Women’s Continental Team), on the other hand, took a maiden professional winner this spring in Luxembourg, and had a resounding win in the under-23 time trial; she is flying. Alice Towers (EF Education–Oatly), the 2022 champion who relishes exactly this kind of attritional one-day course, has the legs for the front group. Lauren Dickson (FDJ–SUEZ), so often in the mix here, misses out after breaking her collarbone at the Tour de Suisse.
For the domestic audience, Morven Yeoman (DAS-Hutchinson) is the standard-bearer: winner of the women’s Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix, leader of both the women’s National Road Series and the Rapha Super-League, and a fast, aggressive finisher who has been among the defining riders of the British season. Anna Morris (Private Member) is a serious contender on current domestic form, with a string of wins this spring and a podium at the Lincoln Grand Prix. DAS-Hutchinson surround Yeoman with strength — Josie Knight, Sophie Lewis, Katie Scott, Lucy Lee and Noémie Thomson, winner of the CiCLE Classic that opened the series — giving them one of the strongest domestic squads in the race. Handsling Alba Development Road Team, led by Tour of the Reservoir winner Kate Richardson and the returning Izzy Sharp, are the other main counterweight. Flora Perkins (Fenix–Premier Tech) is a strong rider in her own right as much as Couzens’s most important helper.
The women’s race carries the same second prize, and this year it is wide open: last year’s under-23 winner, Couzens, has aged out of the category, and Ferguson, who would have started clear favourite, is injured. Bäckstedt inherits that billing, the defending national time-trial champion arriving as the form rider of the field on a course that suits her. Lloyd and Boothman, two fast finishers in form, are her nearest challengers; Wolff sits a little behind them this season, with Eilidh Shaw (UAE Development Team), eighth here last year, next in line. The best of the home-based under-23s is Yeoman, whose National Road Series lead makes her the leading domestic name in the category.
Provisional startlists
Women’s race
Open race
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