The Escape: The Tour, the Cyclist and Me cover art

The Escape: The Tour, the Cyclist and Me

The Tour, the Cyclist and Me

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

The Escape: The Tour, the Cyclist and Me

By: David Walsh, Pippa York
Narrated by: Annie Wallace, Gerry O’Brien, Stephanie Racine, David Rintoul, Joe Eyre
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

Winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award 2025

A Sunday Times Best Book of 2025

A Guardian Best Sports Book 2025

A unique memoir from British cycling’s most fascinating competitor.

In the summer of 2020, sportswriter David Walsh invited Pippa York began a series of journeys following the Tour de France. A nostalgic voyage through the world’s most competitive bike race – for Walsh it was the chance to get to know the Tour’s most enigmatic riders. For York, it was a chance to revisit the race she had ridden eleven times as Robert Millar.

This book is the result – a unique and captivating sporting odyssey. The Escape blends the details of Pippa and David’s journeys with the iconic landmarks of the Tour de France to explore her early years in working-class Glasgow, her entry into competitive cycling, the psychological demands of the sport, and how they shaped her personality. It recounts her career highs and lows, life after racing, and her transition in her 40s.

Touching on doping, gender in sport, and the everyday magic of the Tour, The Escape is an unforgettable travelogue and a candid, one-of-a-kind memoir from one of cycling’s most enigmatic competitors.

©2025 Pippa York, David Walsh (P)2025 HarperCollins Publishers Biographies & Memoirs Cycling Sports Sports Writing

Listeners also enjoyed...

 According to G cover art
Road Captain cover art
The Accidental Tour-ist cover art
The Chain cover art
Tadej Pogacar cover art
Further cover art
Believe cover art
The Secret Cyclist cover art
Jan Ullrich cover art
The Death of Marco Pantani cover art
Full Gas Forever cover art
The Last Bell cover art
1923 cover art
Sticky Bottle cover art
God Is Dead cover art
Bloody Minded cover art

Critic reviews

'The Escape is a book about one of Britain’s greatest cyclists and their hidden struggle — how they tried to run away from their dysphoria but wouldn’t find peace until it was dealt with. It is about one of cycling’s greatest journalists and his love for the race, despite the Armstrong years. It is also about the greatest sporting spectacle on earth, the Tour de France, and there are few better people to explore it with than with York and Walsh, in what is a tremendously engaging read'. – The Times

‘[The Escape] is a freewheeling, fascinating read that defies genre: part travelogue and part memoir, it dances between present and past, sporting observation and self-reflection, drugs that help you cheat and drugs that help you live. And for all the pain and anguish that gets unlocked here, this is a book without a bitter or hateful bone in its body.’ – Jonathan Liew, Guardian’s Best Sports Books of 2025

All stars
Most relevant
A really open and honest inside view into both pro cycling and what it's like to change gender. This book addresses many of the typical questions and misunderstandings of the experience of transgender people and it's laid out in a straight forward way. Equally engaging is how that life merged/clashed with a great sporting career.
Only negative is the Audio narration. The voice used for Pippa didn't feel like it was a good fit to the real person. Also there were few names (particularly of riders) that didn't get brutally mispronounced.

Fascinating and Uplifting

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Loved this. Unusual layout, so very interesting. Angry and sad to hear how Pippa was treated by the media. Great insight to Pippa's career.

Fascinating

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
one of the finest books of any genre I have listened to in the past decade and one of only a handful that I then bought the paper copy too

Sublime

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
To be honest I bought the book to read about THEE Scottish cyclist I did enjoy the narrative regarding race tactics and how it feels to ride at the highest level however it did turn into a huge learning curve for myself regarding the lows and and to some extent the highs of transitioning brought to life with tales of down right cruelty but with typical Scottish stoic humour and pathos .

Great book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Beautifully written, three fantastic narratives wound into a single story. An empathetic book which everyone should listen too, whether you are a cycling fan or not

A beautifully crafted informative and sensitive book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.