A Dog in a Hat: An American Bike Racer's Story of Mud, Drugs, Blood, Betrayal, and Beauty in Belgium
by Joe Parkin
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Book Summary Information
Author: Joe ParkinBrand: VELO
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-09-01
ISBN: 1934030260
Number of pages: 205
Publisher: Velo Press
Product features:
- An American Bike Racer's Story of Mud, Drugs, Blood, Betrayal, and Beauty in Belgium
- A Dog in a Hat is the remarkable story of Joe Parkin
- In 1987, Parkin left the comforts of home to become a bike racer in Belgium, the hardest place in the world to be a bike racer
- As one of the first American pros in Europe, Parkin was what the Belgians call "a dog with a hat on - something familiar, yet decidedly out of place
- Paperback with color photo section
Book Reviews of A Dog in a Hat: An American Bike Racer's Story of Mud, Drugs, Blood, Betrayal, and Beauty in Belgium
Book Review: Belgian sport. A hands on the handlebars look at cycling in Europe.
Summary: 5 Stars
This book may be too lean at around 200 pages and maybe it could have been longer but the anecdotes on travel and racing really do give you a birds eye view of the peloton. At the same time, there is no reason to belabor a point as well. Furthermore, it is informative on the country of Belgium with it's own proud sports traditions and in some ways, is similar to the Netherlands so it definitely has a travelogue aspect to it. I mean I first watched the Belgium "Red Devils" soccer team play in the 1986 World Cup and they caught my imagination but there has largely been a void in sports literature on Belgium, this helps quite a bit. To those who are interested in cycling, some names and events will be recognizable such as talking about Greg Lemond, Eddy Merckx, the Seven-Eleven team and things such as that. A thoroughly enjoyable read but because of its brevity, at first, I didn't quite give it the full top ranking but I changed it to 5 stars because it has really stayed with me and I'm glad I have it around vs. say reading a book checked out from the library.
The topic of "Kermis races" is indeed discussed in depth and I'd say the central topic of the book. Oh, yeah, he talks qute a bit about bike wrecks too, I guess that's what the public wants at least they say, for NASCAR races, seeing the wrecks. Also, at times, the thought process and sentence structures do not always seem to be complete. An example of this is when the author relates "We came back from Montreal", well, he didn't talk about going there in the first place. Furthermore, I'm not positive if he means the North American Montreal or if there might be another such named place in another French speaking part of the world as he is in but I think he meant Canada. If another topic often associated with professional cycling is discussed and that being doping is written about, it's not a big part of his story to me at least and is often in the background, part of the story like changing a flat tire.
I'd be remiss too in reviewing this, if I did not mention Parkin's foray into riding for the USA National team and that is certainly one of the highpoints of his story and an accomplishment that speaks for itself.
Really good bike book because honestly, a lot of us probably don't have that good of an understanding of the sport. I still don't but I only really got lost in one chapter of the book.
Addendum: I'd like to say to all who enjoyed this book, Joe Parkin does have a blog one can read: "6 years in a rain cape" and it sounds like he may become the editor for "Bike" magazine.
More A Dog in a Hat: An American Bike Racer's Story of Mud, Drugs, Blood, Betrayal, and Beauty in Belgium reviews:
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Summary of A Dog in a Hat: An American Bike Racer's Story of Mud, Drugs, Blood, Betrayal, and Beauty in Belgium
In 1987, Joe Parkin was an amateur bike racer in California when he ran into Bob Roll, a pro on the powerhouse Team 7-Eleven. "Lobotomy Bob" told Parkin that, to become a pro, he must go to Belgium. Riding along a canal in Belgium years later, Roll encountered Parkin, who he described as "a wraith, an avenging angel of misery, a twelve-toothed assassin". Roll barely recognized him. Belgium had forged Parkin into a pro, and changed him forever. A Dog in a Hat is Joe's remarkable story.Parkin lays it all out: the drugs, the payoffs, the betrayals, the battles for contracts, the endless promises, and the glory of racing day after day. A Dog in a Hat is the unforgettable story of the un-ordinary education of Joe Parkin and his love affair with racing, set in the hard place in the world to be a bike racer.
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