A Dog in a Hat: An American Bike Racer’s Story of Mud, Drugs, Blood, Betrayal, and Beauty in Belgium
Where to buy A Dog in a Hat: An American Bike Racer’s Tale of Mud, Drugs, Blood, Treachery, and Beauty in Belgium books online?
- ISBN13: 9781934030264
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
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 recognizable him. Belgium had forged Parkin into a pro, and changed him forever. A Dog in a Hat is Joe’s remarkable tale.
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 tale of the un-ordinary education of Joe Parkin and his like affair with racing, set in the hard place in the world to be a bike racer.
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if it wasnt 4 the drug refer it would b a dull tale about a bone idle career and sorry bob roll we all kno u and every1 was high as hell on drugs dont waste ur money on this traiter trying 2 make a dime on his crappy spoiled life
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
Finaly an honest tale about bike racing in Belgium and Europe. Fully recomended. Tales make their point and don’t drag them out. Fervently recomended for all bike race fans.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
I looked forwards to this book because I delight in following professional bike racing and I am of Belgian descent. Agreed the intensity of Belgian participation in the sport and the possiblity of “fish out of water” scenarios involving a young American in Europe, I had high hopes for an entertaining first-person account.
As a replacement for, I kept wondering when something significant would take place, or what the tale was building up to. We learn nothing about what motivated the leader. How did he become a bicycle racer? What drives him? What really made him want to slug it out as a second or third tier cyclist on a grueling professional circuit? The chapters are a series of honestly featureless snapshots of races and trainig, and the book builds to nothing. There is no clear indication as to why the leader recounts certain incidents, and not others, because they lack real excitement, humor or any additional importance. In fact, at the end the leader seems to fade away from the sport based on his (a) lack of major talent and (b) failure to properly manage his own contracts and schedule. The “revelations” about drug use in the sport are a yawn. Gee, no kidding, professional bicyclits have used performance enhancing substances. In this day and age it is pretty much assumed, and the doping described in the book seem mild and primitive in comparison to persons employed by the current “stars.”
Maybe my expectations of the book were too high, but I really felt it merely recounted, with small insight, a series of honestly uninteresting events in which a lower-tier bicyclist was involved several years ago.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
You know, I wanted to like this book, I really did. I just establish myself putting it down every 10 pages or so out of lack of interest. It was a very narrow tale, but it lacked teeth, it reads like a straight forwards bio, just the facts. The narrative was emotionally missing, just a total monotone. There is just not enough of life outside Bicycling to hold my interest.
The book is all over, jumping from place to place lacking a frame of reference. I just got bored, confused and then unbiased. If you like bicycling, bike racing you might like this novel if you can stay interested, I could not. I felt like I had to struggle with every page reading this after the first few. Just unadorned flat. Hard to recommend.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
I’m an avid cyclist, and had my own dreams of turning pro years ago, so I was very interested in reading this testimonial. It’s a bit uneven and choppy, but appealing in it’s own way. It won’t change the world, and IMHO would have been better if used as the basis for a excellent book of fiction, but as it is it makes a excellent read on a long flight.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5