I enjoyed reading the book, but can't claim that it's particularly well-written or insightful. It would have been completely unintelligible if I hadn't already read 'Roadie: The Misunderstood World of a Bike Racer,' by Jamie Smith. I bought Jamie Smith's book because he's my friend Denise's brother. It's an explanation of the nuts and bolts and culture of bike racing, written for the family and friends of racers. It was funny and well written, and revealed the mysteries of race strategy. That somehow lead into reading 'The Rider' by Tim Krabbe. It's a brilliant novel, that follows the thoughts of one bike racer during a brutal race. And then I find myself reading 'A Dog in a Hat'. I mainly picked it up because of the reference to Belgium. Parkin became a bike nut as a teenager, and took off to Belgium to become a real racer as soon as he could. He learned Flemish, kept his head down, and worked his ass off. He's not exactly articulate, but it's readable, and it's a portrait of a world that's about as alien to me as the moon. ( )

More often than not, sports memoirs usually fall into two major categories; tell-all scandal sheets designed to sell copies through controversy, and lengthy life stories heavily padded with dull and unneeded information.

Joe Parkin’s biking memoir does not fall into either of these camps. In A Dog in a Hat, Parkin chronicles the years he spent training and racing in Belgium during the late eighties with brevity and candor, giving the reader plenty of breathing room to enjoy the behind the scenes look at professional bike racing.

Perkin’s memoir is about more than just racing. It is a look at the adventures and journeys of an ambitious young man immersing himself in unfamiliar cultures and customs, not only in the intense world of professional team bike racing, but also the foreign land and people that for a short while became his adopted home and family.
Never bitter or overly dramatic,

A Dog in a Hat is a professional athlete’s fond recollection of a period in his life filled with the experiences and decisions – both good and bad – that not only define the development of an athletic career, but of one man’s life journey.

Even if you are not into professional bike racing, A Dog in a Hat is a sports memoir that will amuse, inspire, and entertain. ( )