John Walker Memorial Roadrace - 20km Solo lead and then caught 50m before the finish

Well, there was one rider up the road, a relegated Elite rider and I was trying to catch him for almost 20km. Whilst I didn't, the peloton caught me just on the last 50m.  I still crossed the line in 14th place. The final 5km where on a straight long undulating road with tailwind, the maximum speed I could hold on the slight decline was just below 50km/h but a peloton of some 80+ riders easily rides at 60km/h and had me in their sights from far away. Totally gutted but also happy that I tried and almost did it.

Surrey League: Milland Hill, rode in the lead for most of the race and then punctured.

This one will be remembered, going full steam on the dual carriageway in order to initiate a breakaway. It stuck. I got 4 more riders to help and our lead grew steadily. When we had 3 mins ahead of the field and two more laps out of 8 to go I had a puncture and there was no neutral service car available on this day. Game over. Pissed off. The 4 other companions fought out the victory as I could only watch them at the finish.

puncturing is always the most frustrating thing to happen

The ultimate LONDON DYNAMO World championships 2017

How great, our club organized this year's Club championships at the Lea Valley Racecourse, just outside around the Olympic Velodrome. 

Despite weekly weekday racing there since the 2012 Olympics I personally never managed to race there. as it is on the other side of the city and timewise not manageable with my workweek. So this was the one and only opportunity for me to race this course. The race was practically all Amateur Club racers Category Elite,1,2,3. Luckily at current, we don't have any Elites in our club but a whole lot of young and fresh newcomers who couldn't wait to test against experienced riders (and old farts like me). As ever, the higher the category the riders had to accept higher handicaps, with a handful of 1st cats starting a good 2 mins behind the huge field of 3rd cats. I think the ratio was about 35 3rd cats versus 10 2ns cats versus 2 1st cats.
The 3rds worked pretty well together to hold the 1st and 2nd cats off until the last 10 laps.
I knew they would catch us pretty damaged and with my long known sprint abilities managed to clinch 2nd place, much to the upset of many 2nd cat riders. I leave this as another legacy to the club. Our all time sprint star Gavin Ryan, who is 15 years younger than me took the expected win and our new rising star Tobias Dahlhaus, who I think is 30 years younger than me, took 3rd.
After a cocked up season 2017 this at least brought some smiles into my otherwise grim face...

Keeping the pace high, until it was clear that the 2nd and 3rd wouldn't catch us, which would have been unfair.

I had the feeling that some of the other old farts really had an eye on me...

It was the first full out sprint for me in 2017 and took me a week to recover from it.