Mark Cavendish was unable to wrestle the British national road title from Peter Kennaugh after being narrowly beaten in Lincolnshire on Sunday.

Cavendish, who has a property in Ongar, was just beaten by the 26-year-old Team Sky rider, who becomes just the third man to clinch back-to-back British national road titles in the process.

Kennaugh and Team Sky had dominated for virtually the whole day, attacking with more than 80km of the 197.6km race remaining to build a 30-second lead over Etixx-QuickStep's Cavendish.

The Manxman timed his move well and it became increasingly clear it would be a head-to-head tussle between Cavendish and Kennaugh to the line, after seeing off the challenge of Ian Stannard and Luke Rowe (both Team Sky).

But Cavendish could not quite keep pace with Kennaugh on the final part of a sharp climb and instead finished in second place.

Speaking afterwards, Cavendish said: “I’ve trained hard this year, the team’s given me a good programme to prepare for the Tour, and I’m up for it.

“This was a good hit out. I’m happy with how I felt, so I need a week of recovery now and I’ll be flying for the first days of the Tour de France. I just cracked the last time up Michaelgate, I’d been riding all day on my own. But I’m super happy with that.”