The annual tradition of holding your National Championships road race the week before the Tour de France has backfired in recent years. Fearful of crashing just a week before the season's biggest spectacle, a lot of the world's best riders have opted to avoid racing for their home jersey in order to be fully focused on the bigger prize ahead.
Geraint Thomas and the Yates twins just an example of the top riders who skipped racing on home soil to dial in just seven days before the Tour.
Regardless of these absences, the collection of one-day races across the world produced some exciting riding and some worthy winners.
Here is a round-up of the biggest results from this weekend's jostling for national jerseys.
New jersey, who this?
Ben Swift broke his nationals curse to take his first British road race title, outsprinting Team Ineos teammate Ian Stannard and Ribble Pro Cycling's John Archibald.
The women's race was wrapped up by Alice Barnes of Canyon-Sram who secured a national title double following her individual time-trial win earlier in the week.
Sam Bennett was crowned Irish national champion for the first time as the Bora Hansgrohe rider continued his good season to beat Eddie Dunbar of Team Ineos and Trek-Segafredo's Ryan Mullen to the crown.
The biggest news outside of the UK and Ireland was that Peter Sagan will be wearing a trade team jersey for the first time in over a decade. His brother and Bora-Hansgrohe teammate Juraj rode to a second Slovakian title after his 2017 success.
It was a great weekend for the Bora team as they also snatched the Austrian title with Patrick Konrad, Italian jersey with Davide Formolo and German title with Max Schachmann.
The team's performance in Germany was particularly impressive as they occupied all three spots on the podium thanks to Marcus Burghardt and Andreas Schillinger.
In the women's race, Lisa Brennauer took the honours.
Despite 20 Lotto-Soudal riders and eight Deceuninck-QuickStep men, the Belgian national road race title produced a big surprise with cyclocross specialist Tim Merlier securing the win. Jess Vandenbulcke took the women's honours.
Decueninck did make up for it in Denmark however as Michael Morkov defended his jersey and the Netherlands, too, with Fabio Jakobsen sprinting to victory.
Young sprint talent also flourished in the Dutch women's race as Parkhotel Valkenburg 20-year-old Lorena Wiebes took a maiden elite title. Former women's World Champion Amalie Diderksen (Boels-Dolmans) took the Danish title.
Luxembourg saw a true showing of dominance across both the men's and women's races. Bob Jungels took yet another solo victory, crossing the line over a minute before his closest rival, with Christine Majerus then taking the women's title with a winning margin of 11 minutes 49 seconds.
Arkea-Samsic's Warren Barguil became French champion, Jumbo-Visma's Armund Jansen became Norwegian champion, Astana's Alexey Lutsenko defended in Kazakhstan and Trek-Segafredo's Toms Skujins became Latvian champion. All four of which will be riding the Tour de France.
Movistar took the men's and women's Spanish titles thanks to Alejandro Valverde and Lourdes Oyarbide who rode to victory in Murcia.
Alex Howes became the first Education First to ever take the American national title, a big moment for Jonathan Vaughters's team. Trek-Segafredo's Ruth Winder took the women's title in a clean sweep for Boulder-based riders.
Lastly, a shoutout to Arto Vainionpaa who became Finnish National Champion for the first time in his career at the age of 50.