Joe Parkin’s “A Dog in a Hat” was a revelation – a raw, unvarnished account of an American kid chasing the European dream, hurling himself into the cobbled hell of Belgian kermesses, and earning his stripes the hard way. But what happens when the dream fades? When you come home and find that home isn’t quite as you remember it? That’s the story Parkin tells in “Come and Gone“, the sequel to his Belgian adventure.
This is a book about transition, about trying to find a place in a world that’s moved on without you. It’s about coming back to America in the early ‘90s when mountain biking was booming, road racing was stagnating and Joe, hardened by European suffering, tried to carve out a career in both disciplines.
It’s not a fairy tale, though. Parkin isn’t Greg LeMond coming home a Tour de France hero. He’s a domestique, a workhorse, a guy who got spat out of the Euro peloton and had to figure out what came next.
The Cold Shoulder Back Home
Coming home after years of riding the hard Belgian school, Parkin expects to be a cut above the domestic scene. After all, he’s raced in Het Volk, duked it out in kermesses against up-and-coming stars, and lived the life of a European pro. Surely, the U.S. peloton will be a step down, a chance to dominate?
But Parkin is met with skepticism not respect. The American scene isn’t rolling out a red carpet for a guy who’s spent years in Europe. Instead, he finds that many riders don’t know him, don’t care where he’s been and are more interested in their own careers than in the war stories of a returning expat. Twas ever thus I suppose.
Eventually he lands a spot with the elite Coors Light team, one of the biggest squads on the U.S. circuit at the time. But after years of the Euro grind racing in the U.S. is a difficult transition.
Parkin finds that events are poorly organised, sponsorship money is pretty scarce and many of the racers lack any race-craft. Parkin fights through three hardscrabble seasons chasing wins on the U.S. road racing circuit, but something is missing; the motivation that drove him every day in Europe just isn’t there anymore.
Mountain Biking: A New Frontier
With road racing feeling like a dead end Parkin pivots to mountain biking, a sport that, in the early ‘90s, was exploding. It’s the Wild West, a place where sponsorship money is flowing, brands are eager to get in on the action and races are drawing big crowds.
It’s also a massive culture shock.
Parkin has spent years shaving grams off his race bike, training in grim weather, and adhering to the rigid Euro-pro code but now he’s on knobbly tires, in baggy shorts, lining up alongside guys with long hair and casual attitudes.
He respects the racing, finds it brutally hard and he throws himself into the discipline with his usual workmanlike dedication but it’s clear he’s never quite at home here; he’s still the European roadie, the guy who values discipline, suffering, and precision.
Mountain biking, for all its thrill and skill, feels alien to him. Sure, Parkin gets results but he never really shakes the feeling that he’s an outsider.
However, after those tough years on the road grinding out results that never quite satisfy, Parkin finally finds himself in the winner’s circle as a mountain bike pro. The victories he couldn’t manage in Belgium or in the U.S. road scene do finally come, not on the tarmac but on the dirt. It’s a different kind of racing, a different kind of satisfaction, but it’s a victory nonetheless, a win is a win.
The Slow Fade
The most poignant part of “Come and Gone” is Parkin’s realisation that his best days might be behind him. Unlike “A Dog in a Hat” which tells the story of an ambitious young man trying to forge a career, this book is about the slow fade.
The creeping understanding that pro cycling is moving on, that younger, hungrier guys are coming up, that the body doesn’t recover quite as fast as it used to.
He describes it in beautifully sad detail; the late-race struggles, the sense of losing touch with the front group, the deep-seated knowledge that the dream might be ending.
It’s a rare thing in cycling books where so many are about glory, about triumph, about winning. Parkin gives us the other side, what it feels like when the wins don’t come, when you’re not the next big thing, and a feeling we’ve all had at one time or another when you’re just trying to hang on.
The Parkin Style
Joe Parkin’s writing is like his riding – no frills, no nonsense, straight to the point. He doesn’t romanticise the American scene any more than he did the Belgian one. He lays it out honestly, the loneliness, the self-doubt, the financial struggles, the occasional moments of triumph overshadowed by the creeping reality of diminishing returns.
Like in “A Dog in a Hat” the stories are gold. There’s the time he rode for a sponsor that didn’t actually have the money to pay the team, leaving him scrambling for a paycheck. The bizarre moments in the mountain bike world where he’s expected to be a personality as much as a racer. The time he tried to go full gas in a criterium only to realise his old diesel engine wasn’t what it used to be.
He doesn’t sugarcoat his own shortcomings, either. He knows he wasn’t the best, wasn’t a superstar and was never going to climb a World Tour podium. But he was a pro. He lived the life, suffered for it and gave everything he had. That alone makes “Come and Gone” worth reading.
Why You Should Read It
“A Dog in a Hat” was about chasing a dream and “Come and Gone” is about the brutal reality of what happens afterwards.
Parkin doesn’t give us a fairy tale – he gives us the truth, and in a sport that so often glosses over the struggles in favour of the glory, that truth is a breath of fresh air.
* * *
“Come and Gone” by Joe Parkin
- Publisher : VeloPress (13 May. 2010)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 208 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1934030546
- ISBN-13 : 978-1934030547
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