A Dog In A Hat, An American Bike Racer's Story.....Joe Parkin, Velopress, Paperback

Ref: DC/02

Price: £14.95 / €18.69

Quantity:

When a normal situation suddenly changes, Belgians call it “een hond met een hoed op,� a dog with a hat on. Joe Parkin, an American bike racer who left the familiar comforts of home to compete at the highest professional level in Belgium, was that dog in a hat � something familiar, yet decidedly out of place.

In his searing, no-holds-barred memoir, Parkin describes the true life of the professional bike racer. His plain spoken prose puts us in the whirlwind of this hardest of athletic educations, starting with the first visit to his team doctor, where, strapped to a metal table and monitored by humming electrodes, men in white lab coats coldly divine his future as a pro.

Parkin pulls no punches. A Dog in a Hat celebrates the glory of bike racing, but Parkin tells the hard reality of the life thrillingly � the drugs, the payoffs, the betrayals by team-mates, the battles with team owners for contracts and money, the endless promises that keep you going, and the sheer physical agony of racing day after day.

Despite the pain, despite the suffering, A Dog in a Hat is a beautiful book. It is one racers story of his love affair with professional cycling, set in the hardest place in the world to be a bike racer. It is a story untold until now, and one that Parkins readers will never forget.

Joe Parkin was an amateur bike racer in California when he met Bob Roll (Bobke II), who advised him to move to Belgium to further his cycling career. He represented the United States at the World Professional Cycling Championships and the World Cyclocross Championships. Following his road racing years in Belgium, he returned to the United States and began a successful second career as a pro mountain bike racer. He currently resides in Golden Valley, Minnesota.

204 pages with illustrations/colour plates. 151 x 230 mm.Paperback.Published date September 2008.

Books are a new thing for us. It is a price competitive market. We are not some huge amozonian warehouse with thousands of books in stock. Trawl the net and you may find it cheaper. They cost more to post than we charge. We are just trying to offer you a small selection of books you will love....or to make the present buying a little easier for the cycling nut in your life. Enjoy.