How to Win a Bike Race – Tactics from Inside the Peloton

Full Gas

Bluffing, breakaways, sprinting and strategy - Full Gas takes us on the team bus to give us the inside story on tactics directly from the riders and managers themselves

First drawn into the sport while a student in Spain in the mid-1980s, Peter Cossins has been writing about cycling since 1993, contributing principally to Cycling Weekly, Cycle Sport and Procycling. 
 
The Monuments, his history of cycling's five greatest one-day Classic races, was published in 2014, followed in 2015 by Alpe d’Huez, an appraisal of cycling’s greatest climb. 
 
For Yellow Jersey Press he has written the definitive account of the first ever Tour de France, Butcher, Blacksmith, Acrobat, Sweep the also the enlightening book on cycling tactics, Full Gas. 
 
He lives in the Ariège in the heart of the French Pyrenees.

** WINNER OF THE CYCLING BOOK OF THE YEAR AT THE 2019 TELEGRAPH SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARDS** 
 
So how do you win a bike race? 
 
Riding as fast as you could for as long as you could was the main tactic in the early days of road racing when Grand Tours could be won by hours. Now a minute’s delay thanks to a puncture could ruin a rider’s chances over a three-week race and the sport is described as nothing less than chess on wheels. The intricacies and complexities of cycling are what makes it so appealing: an eye for opportunity and a quick mind are just as crucial to success as a 'big engine' or good form. 
 
 How do you cope with crosswinds, cobbles, elbows-out sprints, weaving your way through a teeming peloton? Why are steady nerves one of the best weapons in a rider’s arsenal and breakaway artists to be revered? Where do you see the finest showcase of tactical brilliance? Peter Cossins takes us on to the team buses to hear pro cyclists and directeurs sportifs explain their tactics: when it went right, when they got it wrong – from sprinting to summits, from breakaways to bluffing. 
 
 Hectic, thrilling, but sometimes impenetrable – watching a bike race can baffle as much as entertain. Full Gas is the essential guide to make sense of all things peloton.

The Tale of the First Tour de France

Butcher, Blacksmith, Acrobat, Sweep

Told for the first time, the full story behind the creation of the Tour de France and the remarkable first edition of the race in 1903.

Essential…The First Tour de France takes you back to the race itself. Cossins produces a deeply researched and detailed description of the race that toggles between background information on the race’s organization and the individual stages, with long stretches of real-time-style stage reporting one chapter at a time.The effect of this, especially the latter, is soaring

Enthralling… Full of outlandish characters and ripping yarns, it makes for a cracking good read

From the winner of the Telegraph Sports Book Awards Cycling Book of the Year 2018 
 
The first Tour de France in 1903 was a colourful affair full of adventure, mishaps and audacious attempts at cheating. Its riders included characters like Maurice Garin, an Italian-born Frenchman, said to have been swapped for a round of cheese by his parents in order to smuggle him into France to clean chimneys as a teenager, Hippolyte Aucouturier with his trademark handlebar moustache, and amateurs like Jean Dargassies, a blacksmith who had never raced before. 
 
Would this ramshackle pack of cyclists draw crowds to throng France's rutted roads and cheer the first Tour heroes? Surprisingly it did, and, all thanks to a marketing ruse dreamed up to revive struggling newspaper L'Auto, cycling would never be the same again. Peter Cossins takes us through the inaugural Tour de France, painting a nuanced portrait of France in the early 1900s, to see where the greatest sporting event of all began.

Peter Cossins

As an author of cycling literature since the early nineties, Cossins clearly knows a thing or two about the sport. The Yellow Jersey takes the story of cycling’s most coveted prize, back to its humble beginnings, and intersperses facts, anecdotes and statistics to take you for an enjoyable ride through the history of the sport

Cossins has done a great job of tying together many aspects of Le Tour under the one central theme of the yellow jersey, resulting in an enjoyable, informative, readable, and alternative look at Le Tour – supported by a wide range of relevant images in a beautifully presented book

Without doubt the most beautiful book to land on our desk this year… we can’t recommend this book enough

WINNER OF THE 2020 TELEGRAPH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS CYCLING BOOK OF THE YEAR

* WINNER OF THE 2020 TELEGRAPH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS CYCLING BOOK OF THE YEAR* 
 
Discover this 100-year anniversary celebration of the hardest-earned and most sacred prize in sport, the Tour de France's Yellow Jersey. 
 
 In 2019, the cycling world will celebrate the 100th anniversary of sport's most iconic and distinguished prize: the Yellow Jersey. Beautifully produced and packed full of interviews with riders such as Chris Froome, Thomas Voeckler and the oldest living wearer of the Yellow Jersey at 94, Antonin Rolland, The Yellow Jersey is a fitting celebration of the 'maillot jaune'. 
 
 In 1919 the leading rider was first instructed to wear the Yellow Jersey, following a campaign from fans and journalists who were struggling to identify the winning rider. 100 years on, the jersey has passed into almost sacred status. You'll never see an amateur rider wearing yellow - it is reserved purely for those who have sacrificed themselves in the world's greatest race. 
 
 Cossins will take the reader on a journey to the origins of the jersey and its early winners. He'll explore the effect of wearing yellow as a motivator and occasionally as a curse. Beautifully produced with original photography, The Yellow Jersey is an exquisite tribute to the greatest trophy in sport. 
 
'Without doubt the most beautiful book to land on our desk this year... we can't recommend this book enough' Cycling Weekly

Peter Cossins

Praise for The Yellow Jersey

As an author of cycling literature since the early nineties, Cossins clearly knows a thing or two about the sport. The Yellow Jersey takes the story of cycling’s most coveted prize, back to its humble beginni ...

Cossins has done a great job of tying together many aspects of Le Tour under the one central theme of the yellow jersey, resulting in an enjoyable, informative, readable, and alternative look at Le Tour – supported ...

Without doubt the most beautiful book to land on our desk this year… we can’t recommend this book enough

As an author of cycling literature since the early nineties, Cossins clearly knows a thing or two about the sport. The Yellow Jersey takes the story of cycling’s most coveted prize, back to its humble beginni ...

Cossins has done a great job of tying together many aspects of Le Tour under the one central theme of the yellow jersey, resulting in an enjoyable, informative, readable, and alternative look at Le Tour – supported ...

Without doubt the most beautiful book to land on our desk this year… we can’t recommend this book enough

As an author of cycling literature since the early nineties, Cossins clearly knows a thing or two about the sport. The Yellow Jersey takes the story of cycling’s most coveted prize, back to its humble beginni ...

Cossins has done a great job of tying together many aspects of Le Tour under the one central theme of the yellow jersey, resulting in an enjoyable, informative, readable, and alternative look at Le Tour – supported ...

Without doubt the most beautiful book to land on our desk this year… we can’t recommend this book enough

Books by Peter Cossins

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