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The Yellow Jersey | 
 enlarge | Author: Ralph Hurne
Publisher: Breakaway Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $0.54
You Save: $14.41 (96%)
New (21) Used (34) from $0.54
Avg. Customer Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 691887
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 285
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8
ISBN: 1558214526
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781558214521
ASIN: 1558214526
Publication Date: January 1, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. 100% Money Back Guarantee.
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Product Description
The greatest cycling novel ever written. . . . An underground classic. . . . A bicycling book that follows a different course-one with characters you can relate to, whose actions raise questions about life on and off the bicycle. . . . The heart of The Yellow Jersey is the Tour de France itself, which serves as a metaphor for life.-Bicycling Magazine
"This is sports fiction at its very best. Mr. Hurne has a cool, downbeat style descended from Lardner and Hemingway, and a fine hand with the hairpins turns of suspense."-The New York Times Book Review
"Full of wit, charm, excitement, and intelligence."-Publishers Weekly
An excerpt from the novel:
It's a funny sort of stage. Everyone seems to be waiting for Romain to attack. Van Faignaert, as I expected, is taking things easy and trying to keep the bunch together. Butch Cassidy's not a bad climber and on the Col de Foreyssasse he has a go, but the Belgian team swoops and soon has him under control. I can see on the faces of the spectators that they are disappointed. They've turned out in their thousands expecting this to be It; I feel like shouting to them to go home and come back tomorrow. We get strung out a bit coming down the Foreyssasse but regroup at the bottom. The ominous threat of Romain taking off, coupled with the strong control of the race by the Belgian team, who're doing their damnedest to keep everyone in one lump, has really put the mockers on things.
I'm just beginning to think that the worst of the stage has passed when the rider directly in front of me punctures, loses control and goes sliding along the loose surface on his side. It's on a sharp descent and the bunch is moving. Although it all happens in a split second, I'm unable to go either to the left or right of the fallen man and I jam on my brakes. With both wheels locked solid I pile into him at about thirty miles per hour. Normally I would have been flung over the handlebars, but my toe straps are sufficiently tight for me to do several cartwheels with the bike still attached to me. For a second everything seems upside down; then pain. I lie there feeling as if I'll never move again. From the front of the group I see v
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| Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
 Cycling Deserves Better August 27, 2007
Surely a better novel about cycling and Le Grand Boucle than this could be written? If you are a bike racing fan there is way too much nonsense about the really unbelievable menage in which Terry Davenport lives, and not enough about the racing, bike technicalities, the role of soigneurs, mechanics, car drivers, motorcyclists and officials. Not to mention the rather amateur attempt to psychoanalyze Terry's motivation. If you are not a fan and just picked up the book by accident you would ask why the cycling kept getting in the way of the lame love story.
In the story we are asked to set the time post Coppi, van Looy, Van Steenbergen, well after transistor radios, but before the era of clipless pedals. This would be between the mid 70's and late 80's. OK. And then we are asked to believe that Terry Davenport still carries a tire pump with him; he uses it to bash a rival after a spate of jersey pulling. My cycling history may not be too accurate, and I know that in the forties riders were still carrying spare tires round their shoulders, and presumably a pump to inflate them, but in the seventies? No way. It was this little gem that said to me that Mr. Hurne either did not study the micro-world of racing hard enough or was too lazy to invent some other way Terry could have defended himself against rough play. He lost authority right then. And there was so little mention of the attentions paid to the riders by the team cars. You are asked to believe that Terry was often on the point of dehydration. It is possible to dehydrate and many have, but it has been their own fault, especially when the team car constantly feed the domestiques with bidons. If it had been set in the forties and early fifties I could have just about swallowed (sic) these really lame errors. But post Merckx, Anquetil, and Bobet. No way.
Cycling, despite its recent problems, is a fascinating world, and deserves better than this.
 Extremly misleading! June 20, 2007
I picked this book up thinking it would be what it pretends to be - a sort of 'underground classic' about cycling.
It's not.
If you want to read about the extremly unlikely sexual exploits of a self absorbed jerk suffering from a very early but severe mid-life crisis, this is a good start.
If you want to read about cycling, the Tour de France, or anything even remotely similar, definitely look elsewhere.
No stars.
A waste of time July 14, 2006
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
After finding this book at the thrift store I thought that I had found a good deal on a book that I had wanted to read. I was wrong and wasted $2.00 on a book that I will never read again nor recommend to anyone.
Not only is the plot lacking but the Character development is abysmal. The author lightly touches on cycling in the last half of the book and even then has no hold on the reader during race sequences. Being a bike rider and racer I know that there are not tons of action packed ideas to write about in cycling races but this was more boring than 50 miles on the trainer.
The ending is very abrupt and has more of a philosophical point than a good cap to the end of the story. The author has devoted more than half of the book to Terry's personal life and women.
This book is quite possibly the worst sports novel I have ever read.
 Unrequited love, Middle-age blues, and the Tour! Great Read For A Cyclist! March 20, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Ralph Hurne's novel The Yellow Jersey captures the inner world of a ready-to-retire professional cyclist. Terry Davenport, a moderately successful racer, spends his days in his girlfriend's antique shop, in between affairs with her daughter and training younger members of his team. Tasked to get Romaine Hendrickx, a young and promising climber, ready to compete in the Tour de France, Terry divides his time between training rides, womanizing, and considering his post-bicycling career options. One day he falls for a young woman in the antique shop. Desperate to impress, Terry enters a local race, wins, and suddenly finds himself on the Tour de France team in support on Romaine. Unfortunately for Terry, his new found love departs for England and he has to deal with the conflicting realities of obligations to his girlfriend, his affair with her daughter (who also happens to be Romaine's fiancee), his duty to train and mentor Romaine, and his own competetive drive. The book's last chapters fly by as Terry and Romaine take on the field in the Tour. Although the racings a little dated ("I tightened my toe clips" - some readers may not even know what these are...) , its a great read and sure to delight any cyclist.
A title! August 17, 2005
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
i had read this over 20 years ago. I remembered it as being very good. I loaned the original copy I had to someone and never got it back. I was delighted to find that it was still in print. I enjoyed it every bit as much as I remembered when I reread it now. It is not for kids but it is an excellent novel on several levels. The descriptions of racing strategy have an authentic feel to them.
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