This year’s nationals were contested on the Isle of Man, home to an unexplainably high proportion of the UK’s best cyclists and a true grassroots hotbed of the sport. Not bad for an island ‘sometimes ridiculed as 60,000 alcoholics clinging to a rock in the Irish sea’.

One of the most charming things about nationals is how the whole race has something of the local club road race about it.

Nationals Day. Bonkers. Famous riders in car parks unpacking bikes from their own cars. Some teams have 14 riders, others just one. Chaos.

— Ned Boulting (@nedboulting) June 25, 2017

And in that spirit, here is what happened in the British National Road Race Championships.

Lizzie Deignan won the women’s race, after Elinor Barker, who had attacked earlier in the day solo, was snatched by a dragon that swooped down on the race with just two kilometres to go.

Deignan used this opportunity to throw a banana skin over her head, Mario Kart-style, before powering off the front to win alone.

In the men’s race, a swarm of bumblebees created havoc in the first kilometres of the race, prompting Jon Dibben, Alex Dowsett, Chris Lawless and Graham Briggs to form a breakaway, the quartet all being highly allergic to bee stings.

Adam Blythe pulled over in a small town along the route to use the local blacksmith’s forge to fix his bike, only to realise that his bike is made of carbon fibre, not steel, and that this is 2017 and there aren’t blacksmiths anymore – not even on the Isle of Man.

Bike Channel Canyon’s Dexter Gardias got so far up the road at one stage that he stopped in a local cafe for an espresso,. Once there however, he quickly fell in love with the woman serving behind the counter, immediately renouncing bike racing as a career in favour of marrying her and making a life together.

Go, go, Gogl! Oh no, Yogi!

With no actual WorldTour racing to talk about, we were forced to spend most of the week pretending to care whether or not Michal Gogl made it into the Trek-Segafredo squad for the Tour de France. Yes, this was the incredibly thrilling team announcement week.

The most talked-about roster announcement was doubtless Team Sky’s, however. The news that Wout Poels, Peter Kennaugh and Ian Stannard missed out raised varying levels of surprise.

Poels has been far from his best all year and was an expected omission. Some thought Kennaugh deserved a run in the team after his barnstorming stage win in the Criterium du Dauphiné, while Ian Stannard has been a lieutenant for Chris Froome in all three of his Tour wins so far and considered by many as a ‘first on the team sheet’ selection.

Unfortunately, big ‘Yogi’, the classics specialist and all round hard-as-nails dude, didn’t make the cut, meaning he suddenly has a big three week gap in his calendar.

Here are some things we think Ian Stannard might be doing instead of racing the Tour de France:

Chewing rocks

Nothing soothes the disappointment like grinding a few pebbles with your molars.

Riding his bike behind jet engines taking off at Manchester Airport

Just ‘cos he likes headwinds.

Throwing darts at a photo of Dave Brailsford

While simultaneously weeping and saying ‘I’m sorry Lord Dave, I’m so, so sorry’.

Phoning Luke Rowe every day of the Tour ‘just for a chat’

‘Hi mate, how’s it going?’

‘Hi Ian. I’m quite tired actually, today was a tough one.’

‘I know. On the TV they said there were 20mph crosswinds?’

‘Yeah, it was brutal.’

‘You lucky bastard.’ *begins sobbing*

‘No, wait, honestly Ian, it wasn’t that bad. Nothing like E3 Harelbeke. Remember when it was so bad G got blown into that ditch.’

*sniffs* ‘Yeah, that was good.’

‘You liked that, didn’t you mate?’

‘Yeah.’ *chuckles*

‘Ok mate, I’ve got to go down to dinner, now.’

‘Ok. Call you tomorrow!’

Breaking planks of wood with his head

HEEEEE-YA!

Going for a nice relaxing spa day with Wout Poels

Even hardmen like a little softness now and again.