‘I fell 70 metres deep into a ravine'
In 1951, Wim Van Est, a total novice in the mountains but Tour leader, Van Est descended the Aubisque like a kamikaze, eventually overshooting a bend and plunging 70 metres into a ravine. By some miracle, he survived; more famously still, Van Est had to be winched back up to the road with a make shift rope. He went on to front an advertising campaign for the watch company Pontiac with the slogan ‘I fell 70 metres deep into a ravine. My heart stopped beating but my Pontiac was still working.’
It’s place at the Tour de France
Surpassed only by the Tourmalet in number of Tour appearances, the Aubisque is one of the Tour’s mountain cornerstones. First used in 1910 as the race looked to add mountain passes in the Pyrenees it has also featured in the Tour de France as a summit finish on three occasions. The noted winners include Frenchman Bernard Labourdette in 1971, Irelands Stephen Roche in 1985, which would be his first stage win at the Grand Boucle and the Dane Michael Rasmussen in 2007 which was to be his last act in that year’s Tour as he was unceremoniously thrown off the Tour in the yellow jersey after the stage.