Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Despite...
Review: 2nd best cycling novel ever, despite flaws (best is Tim Krabbé's "The Rider"). 'Jersey' is extremely engrossing and realistic. You'll stand up flushed and sweaty cheering for this guy... out loud! Suffers 1970's era sexism, but, oh well.
Rating:
Summary: Humorous, Truthful, A Cyclist Journal
Review: Being a cyclist and an indoor cycling instructor, (Spinning), I found the author's description of mental focus, rhythm, pace, and,oh yes, the pain - so honest and truthful. And guess what, he captured all that as he grew older. I'm motivated to keep be cycling for a very long time! I found myself laughing out loud and catching his British accent and humor that sneaks in like Monty Python, Benny Hill and Ab Fab. So what if he was pining over some 'bird' - that's only human, especially to a cyclist. We clear a lot of things out of our heads when we're pedaling. Lance Armstrong even admitted he was a 'player' when racing and practicing in Europe. I'm buying this book as Christmas gifts for all my cycling buddies!
Rating: 
Summary: Slow to get to the point but....
Review: I am a recreational road cycling enthusiast and to be honest I picked up this book because one of the reviews on the cover said "the greatest cycling novel written"...I was curious. Although I did go through reading the entire book on a Sunday I must agree with some of the other online reviews here...The first half of the book is kind of slow and of little interest (if one has picked up this book to read about cycling!). My advice is to 'speed-read' the first half and the second half is sure to keep you riveted and not want to put the book down. I got some great insights into competitive cycling and the "Tour".
Rating: 
Summary: Good read if you can get through the first half
Review: I have to say in the end, I really did enjoy this book. I also have to say I'm a road cyclist. I came close to putting this book down several times during the first half. It is tough to take all of Hume's ridiculous, dated (70's), English sexist colloquial jargon. At times it is impossible for an American to understand. This book would really benefit from a bit of current editing. That being said, the book really picks up when the Tour starts, and Hume's descriptions of the stages is riveting, original, and unpredictable. It would be a far better book if he would have dropped all the romantic/sexual nonsense and concentrate on the cycling, which he so masterfully portrays.
Rating:
Summary: May make you ask yourself some questions about life
Review: I picked up this book along with a couple of others to read while recovering from a surgery. I didn't really know what to expect from it and was surprised that it was mostly about sex to begin with. I came to find, it wasn't so much about sex as it was about a man unsure about life and somewhat unsatisfied with it, doing what he could to deal. I could relate with the main characters views towards life and love, and while not totally agreeing, I could see where they came from. It became a discussion on what the point of it all is. Why do we care about the things we do, why do we love, why do we live, what's the point? The author gives such a good description of the mental and physical agony that comes with bicycle racing that I found myself reliving those feelings that I've had while racing as I read the book. A story of a man facing his own mortality, watching the fitness he enjoyed in his youth fade, and trying to deal with the loss.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down
Review: It would be hard to compare this book to a classic, but it definitely is a great read. I enjoyed this book as much as I enjoyed a Grisham novel. Its main character is complex. If you are looking for a book that is about describing the Tour from cover to cover, you probably want to look elsewhere. However, if you are looking for a novel about the complexity of a person with a lot of cycling thrown in, this is your book. I read the first couple of chapters the first night I got it. I read the last 250 pages on the second night. It was good enough that I was up way too late and missed riding or running the next morning. For an American, some of the English terms I did not understand, but most are in context enough to get the meaning. I recommend this book, even the first half.
Rating:
Summary: A Cult Classic with Quirks
Review: Saying this is "the greatest cycling novel ever written" is like saying "This is the finest book of haiku about bowling". What's the competition? That gripe aside, this is a book that is at its best when describing cycling, yet the author gamely tries to put cycling into the context of a life. Terry Davenport is (in his own words) "a bit of a lad" (American translation: Ladies' Man). He has Austin Powers' sensibilities about the sexual revolution (sometimes when describing women he refers to them as "it"). He spends a good deal of his non-racing life trying to juggle simultaneous affairs with 3 women. Davenport's arrested Peter Pan existence is given one more chance at the Tour De France, and this is where the author really shines. You are taken inside the mind of a rider, the exhaustion, and the courage needed to keep pedaling. I found myself riveted by the end of the book. Not a great novel, but a decent one. It would be 3 stars on character developement, but 4 stars for the riveting cycling descriptions.
Rating:
Summary: A Cult Classic with Quirks
Review: Saying this is "the greatest cycling novel ever written" is like saying "This is the finest book of haiku about bowling". What's the competition? That gripe aside, this is a book that is at its best when describing cycling, yet the author gamely tries to put cycling into the context of a life. Terry Davenport is (in his own words) "a bit of a lad" (American translation: Ladies' Man). He has Austin Powers' sensibilities about the sexual revolution (sometimes when describing women he refers to them as "it"). He spends a good deal of his non-racing life trying to juggle simultaneous affairs with 3 women. Davenport's arrested Peter Pan existence is given one more chance at the Tour De France, and this is where the author really shines. You are taken inside the mind of a rider, the exhaustion, and the courage needed to keep pedaling. I found myself riveted by the end of the book. Not a great novel, but a decent one. It would be 3 stars on character developement, but 4 stars for the riveting cycling descriptions.
Rating: 
Summary: Too heavy in the middle.
Review: The Yellow Jersey reminded me of the 1998 Tour De France. The opening stages were superb and gripping. The middle stages had moments of drama and inspired performances. The end came quickly and sweetly with no huge surprises. But in the middle of that tour was the tedium and distraction and high melodrama of the Festina Affair. Watching the bike race, I didn't need to see Richard Virenque in tears. I didn't need to hear the Tour directors and cycling bureaucrats thump their self righteous and pompous chests and screech forth platitudes. The book is like that. There is a big middle section where we're subjected to page after eye-skewing page of the first person narrator drone on through the muck of a mid-life crisis. The reader will find that they could care less about how many "birds" Terry had bedded or whether the screwed up teenager he seduced is actually pregnant. I had to stop several times during my read and put the book away for fear of gumming up my brain with the sap which poured out of the wounds in the middle of this book. Still, The Yellow Jersey does redeem itself in a huge way once the Tour de France starts. Hurne has either ridden mountain stages or has a highly developed sense of empathy for those who have. The descriptions of the tortuous climbs and the limbs which just give out rank way up there with best Russian literature when setting a mood of pain and suffering. But Hurne makes you work for it. A good editor could slice out 100 pages from the middle, not lose one tilde worth of actual content and make this one a fast-paced classic.
Rating:
Summary: A great book
Review: This is a wonderful novel about an aged pro cyclist who gives the Tour one more try. I loved it.
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