VeloPress

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After five years of blue-collar cycling in Belgium ( A Dog in a Hat ), Joe Parkin returns to the United States looking for a ride. He joins the elite Coors Lite road team as a key member, but the adjustment to domestic racing, with small crowds, inexperienced teammates, and poorly promoted events, proves difficult. Disillusioned, Joe is ready to hang up his cleats when he is offered a contract with a pro mountain bike team. The freshness of mountain biking proves to be an elixir: Joe's career blossoms and he rediscovers his love of the sport. Come and Gone is a rare, frank, and intimate sports memoir. Paperback Color photo section. 6" x 9", 208 pp., $21.95, 978-1-934030-54-7 Download the back cover, table of contents, and entire first chapter (300 kb pdf). “Joe Parkin once again puts the reader in the saddle as he leaves the gritty blue-collar world of Belgian bike racing on a quixotic quest for personal redemption in the budding U.S. road and mountain bike racing scene of the 1990s. The race descriptions are so realistic, you'll need a heart-rate monitor. ” — Sal Ruibal, USA Today “Like its predecessor A Dog in a Hat, Joe Parkin ’s sequel is a fun, barebones adventure through the eyes of a professional cycling journeyman. Dry, candid, and occasionally humorous, Parkin takes the reader inside the national and international cross-country circuits as he rubs elbows with the best in the sport and balances occasional brushes with greatness with more frequent implosions and disappointments. ” — VeloNews magazine “Come and Gone is an unflinching look at the grueling and often mundane world of professional cycling. Dirt geeks will appreciate the historical context as Parkin races in the blossoming mountain bike scene of the ‘90s and competes against legends such as Ned Overend and Tinker Juarez. Parkin ’s humility, humor, and at times, indignation combine into an engaging coming of age story on the bike. ” — Dirt Rag magazine “As Joe enters each new race, we have feeling that this time it will be different —a win, or a podium finish, or at least being in contention for something. But so often he just slips off the back, blows up, or simply does not finish. When we are so used to great comeback stories, it is a disappointment somehow, but Come and Gone smacks more of the exhaustions of real life. ” — PezCyclingNews “Come and Gone isn't a glamorous work of literature. It doesn't tell of great or important things …The book ’s title is an appropriately stark and breezy description of the end of a career. Parkin conveys this sense of how hard it is to walk away, knowing you're good enough but somehow it hasn't worked out. ” — PodiumCafe.com “Come and Gone doesn ’t romanticize the cycling world. What Parkin does well is capture how heartbreaking and frustrating it can be trying to break out of the amateur ranks. Come and Gone is an honest and unglamorous look at the effort required to be a professional cyclist and make a living racing your bike. ” — DailyPeloton.com “It is Joe ’s hope that makes Come and Gone so fascinating.

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