What do you think?
Rate this book
The Yellow Jersey Club
The Yellow Jersey Club contains just twenty-six living members. To become one of this exclusive number requires complete dedication, brutal self-sacrifice and the most extraordinary physical attributes. Yet along with the ability to climb mountains, bomb along time trials and survive all the perils of the road, what really makes a Tour de France champion?
Edward Pickering set out on a mission to ask them, and gained some astonishing insights into the minds of cycling's best ever riders of the past forty years, from giants like Greg LeMond and Stephen Roche to more unfamiliar names like Bernard Thévenet and Joop Zootemelk. With his trademark sharp analysis and deft style, Pickering explores the myriad factors that combine to produce success.
What does it take to accumulate such great mental strength, skill and endurance? What are the differences as well as the key factors in common? What sets these men apart from the rest of the field? The Yellow Jersey Club gives the reader unprecedented access into the secrets of the greats of cycling.
Edward Pickering set out on a mission to ask them, and gained some astonishing insights into the minds of cycling's best ever riders of the past forty years, from giants like Greg LeMond and Stephen Roche to more unfamiliar names like Bernard Thévenet and Joop Zootemelk. With his trademark sharp analysis and deft style, Pickering explores the myriad factors that combine to produce success.
What does it take to accumulate such great mental strength, skill and endurance? What are the differences as well as the key factors in common? What sets these men apart from the rest of the field? The Yellow Jersey Club gives the reader unprecedented access into the secrets of the greats of cycling.
320 pages, Paperback
First published June 4, 2015
4 people are currently reading
53 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 11, 2021
This book had a reasonable concept, but some chapters were much stronger than others and it felt quite disposable, easy to read a few chapters at a time but I think it is unlikely that I will recall much of it. Each winner of the Tour since Merckx is given a brief profile, along with a short summary of how they won each tour.
I expect Pickering had attempted to get an interview with every rider but the best chapters were generally those where he had succeeded. A short biography of each winner on each stage of a tour is fine, but in a book I feel there has to be more justification as to why I should pick up this one in particular. It's not that Pickering was lazy and he would normally have a contemporary to offer his opinion instead, but I know Cadel Evans is a prickly character. I expected to prefer the more modern chapters as I knew the cast, but I often knew the story too so I liked the earlier sections more as there was more that was new.
The author did at least offer some personal insights, whether that was his own run-in with Armstrong or less spiky interations with others. However he also did a lot of unqualified psychology which I found frustrating and far less reliable. Each winner was covered, but some of them did feel like filler sections to keep to the format.
The book hit that odd middle ground where casual fans would struggle to keep up with the names without a background knowledge, and long-term followers wouldn't have learnt that much from it. It was unpretentious in the main but relied too much on secondary sources for me to think this was worth reading over many other cycling books, and was mostly a series of magazine features.
I expect Pickering had attempted to get an interview with every rider but the best chapters were generally those where he had succeeded. A short biography of each winner on each stage of a tour is fine, but in a book I feel there has to be more justification as to why I should pick up this one in particular. It's not that Pickering was lazy and he would normally have a contemporary to offer his opinion instead, but I know Cadel Evans is a prickly character. I expected to prefer the more modern chapters as I knew the cast, but I often knew the story too so I liked the earlier sections more as there was more that was new.
The author did at least offer some personal insights, whether that was his own run-in with Armstrong or less spiky interations with others. However he also did a lot of unqualified psychology which I found frustrating and far less reliable. Each winner was covered, but some of them did feel like filler sections to keep to the format.
The book hit that odd middle ground where casual fans would struggle to keep up with the names without a background knowledge, and long-term followers wouldn't have learnt that much from it. It was unpretentious in the main but relied too much on secondary sources for me to think this was worth reading over many other cycling books, and was mostly a series of magazine features.
August 21, 2021
An interesting concept: taking a Tour de France winner, at one per chapter, and examining their background, mindset, how they won, and most importantly how they (often) also didn’t win. In short, looking at what it takes to become a winner - as well as what comes next.
The length of each chapter was just right and the cycling detail was well balanced with human insight from interviews, autobiographies, etc.
The author took the decision to start at 1975, so the book doesn’t cover the entire ‘Yellow Jersey Club’. I assume this was done for reasons of both space and access (to interviews), but I might have appreciated one chapter which gave a quick summary of the ‘club’ pre-1975 - key characters, interesting titbits, etc.
Like most cycling books, there was the dichotomy in which it was necessary to address the elephant in the room, doping, but at the same time many of the winners who doped were never found guilty or indeed tested positive, so authors (for their own legal protection) can only make vague allusions, for example to the fact that all of the riders below them in the GC eventually tested positive, so…… you do the maths. But the author does manage to touch satisfyingly on doping and ethics nonetheless.
The length of each chapter was just right and the cycling detail was well balanced with human insight from interviews, autobiographies, etc.
The author took the decision to start at 1975, so the book doesn’t cover the entire ‘Yellow Jersey Club’. I assume this was done for reasons of both space and access (to interviews), but I might have appreciated one chapter which gave a quick summary of the ‘club’ pre-1975 - key characters, interesting titbits, etc.
Like most cycling books, there was the dichotomy in which it was necessary to address the elephant in the room, doping, but at the same time many of the winners who doped were never found guilty or indeed tested positive, so authors (for their own legal protection) can only make vague allusions, for example to the fact that all of the riders below them in the GC eventually tested positive, so…… you do the maths. But the author does manage to touch satisfyingly on doping and ethics nonetheless.
July 9, 2022
A very interesting approach to writing about professional cycling. Using a mix of race reportage (sometimes in great detail if called for) and personal observation, Pickering creates a view of Tour de France winners that is more than it appears.
Each chapter varies in length depending, I suspect, on how interesting the rider and the race(s) they won are. The more recent winners (Pickering published this work in 2015; the last yellow jersey winner in his book is Nibali, 2014) recieve somewhat less coverage than the earlier winners or so it seemed to me. Part of this may come down to there being less to cover, that is, fewer wins.
It's a good read, has a well defined objective, and is written in a way that balances race reportage with rider personality. If you are interested in the Tour de France and its winners, this is a book for you.
Each chapter varies in length depending, I suspect, on how interesting the rider and the race(s) they won are. The more recent winners (Pickering published this work in 2015; the last yellow jersey winner in his book is Nibali, 2014) recieve somewhat less coverage than the earlier winners or so it seemed to me. Part of this may come down to there being less to cover, that is, fewer wins.
It's a good read, has a well defined objective, and is written in a way that balances race reportage with rider personality. If you are interested in the Tour de France and its winners, this is a book for you.
April 30, 2018
This book was a bit slow to start but once it got going I enjoyed it. The nearer we got to modern times the more information was available, helped by those that agreed to be interviewed (not everyone). It's clear just how different the personalities are, some likeable, some less so, but they do have one thing in common, they are all awesome cyclists with a streak of grit, determination and sheer bloody-mindedness. The complete lack of pictures let the book down a bit, even if was just one of each, on the bike would have been good. Recommended for anyone interested in what makes winners tick.
March 14, 2025
A good broad overview of the last twenty or so yellow jersey winners. Interesting, but as a cycling fan who knew much of the history, this doesn't cover any new ground. Good for those getting into cycling however!
September 4, 2019
Not like I thought it would be like but very interesting
November 10, 2021
Not bad. Very detailed. Really only for fans, and historians.
Read
September 3, 2017Good read and a useful insight into the top cyclists if their time.
September 26, 2016
Fascinating insist into what it means to wear le maillot jaune at the world's biggest cycle race le Tour de France
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews