Wim van Est's wife listening to the stage in the 1960 Tour
So why was cycling so popular with the masses. Well after the war there was not a whole lot of morale floating about Europe and the population looked to sport star's as their distraction from daily toil. Hero's were born and the star's of days past were hard men from the social working class. Hard men made that way by hard work with little payment. TV was also non existent and people would listen to the race via radio or wait for the newspaper the next day to read about it. This was the way most of the grand tours and classics started, to build up readership and gain popularity. So you can just imagine how people all over Europe were glued to the radio commentary listening to the daily stage and the amount of comradeship that was made by this.
The man she's listening to in the center: Jaap Kersten , Wim van Est , Martin van den Borgh
So why was cycling so popular with the masses. Well after the war there was not a whole lot of morale floating about Europe and the population looked to sport star's as their distraction from daily toil. Hero's were born and the star's of days past were hard men from the social working class. Hard men made that way by hard work with little payment. TV was also non existent and people would listen to the race via radio or wait for the newspaper the next day to read about it. This was the way most of the grand tours and classics started, to build up readership and gain popularity. So you can just imagine how people all over Europe were glued to the radio commentary listening to the daily stage and the amount of comradeship that was made by this.
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