The yellow jersey
vanished down the mountainside

The Netherlands’ first yellow jersey

The day before the Aubisque, Wim van Est had won the stage to Dax after a long breakaway. The victory made him the first Dutch rider to wear the Tour de France yellow jersey. It was a national breakthrough and the greatest day of his career so far.

Van Est was a strong time triallist and already a winner of Bordeaux–Paris. He was less at home on the narrow gravel roads of the high mountains. On stage 13 from Dax to Tarbes, the favourites left him behind on the Aubisque, but he wanted to defend the jersey and tried to regain time on the descent.

Over the edge

The road was rough, with the drop close beside the track. Van Est slid out, crossed the edge and disappeared down the slope. Later accounts often put the fall at 70 metres. That figure was subsequently carved into a commemorative plaque and repeated in advertising, but the precise distance cannot be established from contemporary photographs.

What mattered was that he was alive. The people on the road could see him, but they did not have a rescue rope long enough to reach him.

What riders normally carried over their shoulders as spares for the next puncture was tied together and lowered as a rope.

Bicycle tyres as rescue equipment

Team staff and helpers gathered their spare tubulars — the sewn racing tyres sometimes loosely described as inner tubes — and tied them together. With the improvised line they reached Van Est and hauled him back up the slope.

Film and photographs show the rescue, while both L’Équipe’s historical account and the Dutch cycling museum Velorama describe the plaited line. The number of tyres used, and who tied each knot, vary in later retellings. The improvisation itself, however, is well documented.