is a burning reason for his decision to race. The retiring Julian Dean from GreenEDGE won the New Zealand road championships in 2007 and 2008, Radioshack Nissan Trek pro Hayden Roulston triumphed in 2006 and 2011, while Garmin-Sharp Olympian Jack Bauer beat them both in 2010.

That leaves Henderson among the senior New Zealand pros yet to claim the title, something he would dearly like to achieve.

"Absolutely, there's no question of that. I am realistic as well. It's a hard race to win. I have only got one rider there - myself," Henderson said. "But I can't win it sitting here at home in Melbourne either. You've got to turn up on the start line to have a chance of winning it."

Henderson said the national championship is a tougha stage win in the Vuelta a Espana in 2009 along with six stage victories on the Pro Tour. Now specialising as a lead-out rider, Henderson set up German Greipel to 20 stage wins in 2012 with three coming in the Tour de France.

The father of two knows what wearing the national jersey would mean to him.

"It would be beautiful to be able to wear that black jersey in Europe. New Zealand is pretty well known now. All of the Kiwi bike riders who come over to Europe are well respected. It would definitely be nice and special to wear the jersey in Europe for sure.

"It's a very prominent jersey too so if you had the national jersey sitting in front of Greipel who is winning stages of