Former road pro Joe Parkin has released Come and Gone, the long-awaited sequel to his popular memoir A Dog in a Hat.
While the first book chronicled his early years as a pro road racer in Belgium, the new tome describes his return to the US with empty pockets and no contract.
It charts his struggles with the nascent American bike racing scene, and a change of direction following the birth of mountain bike racing.
As Parkin told us last year: "It's a continuation of my racing story, coming back to the US and feeling like a foreigner in my own country. No internet, no websites, no real television coverage.
"It was hard to get a job on a team, and hard to adapt to the American style of bike racing, which was sometimes easier and oftentimes harder than in Europe. I talk about my mountain bike career, with some flashbacks to my European career, including misadventures."
Described as "a gritty, authentic and heartfelt personal memoir", Come and Gone: A True Story of Blue-Collar Bike Racing in America is published by VeloPress (978-1-934030-54-7) and is out now in paperback priced £14.99 (US$21.95).
