Caroline Ash plans packed biking season

THE widow of motorcycle journalist Kevin Ash has spoken of her efforts to get back into biking as a means of coping with her loss.

Caroline Ash is planning a busy biking season including a day at a race school, trail riding and a test ride of CCM’s new GP450 Adventure. She also hopes to ride to Misano in Italy for World Ducati Week.

Kevin Ash, motorcycle correspondent for the Daily Telegraph and probably the UK’s best known bike journalist, was killed while riding on a gravel road at the press launch of the BMW R1200GS in South Africa on January 22 last year.

As his frequent pillion, Caroline faced not only the tragic loss of her husband but also that of their shared involvement in motorcycling.

Visordown reported in February that Caroline had begun riding solo for the first time in 20 years.

She spoke of her plans for the year in the wake of the inquest on Friday into Kevin’s death.

She said: ‘The inquest was not an experience I want to go through again. I saw and heard things I did not like.  It is behind me now.

‘I will be riding the new CCM soon, and this will happen in Wales.

‘Next, I will go to the California Superbike School at Silverstone with Ducati.’ 

She said she was also planning to take part in a police Bike Safe course and had recently acquired a Yamaha TTR250 trail bike.

‘So I am going to enjoy riding bikes this season,’ she said.

In a recent blog entry Caroline wrote of Kevin: 'I cannot have him back, but I am hoping to ease my pain by doing the things which we loved to do, such as riding motorcycles. I now know I do not have to say goodbye to that as well. I have to create my future myself now. I would like to do the things Kevin and I had planned, hoping it will help me to come to terms with losing Kevin and our future together.’

Last Friday’s inquest recorded a verdict of accidental death.

Warwickshire coroner Sean McGovern said: "There were no witnesses to what happened, and there is not enough evidence to give any other verdict.

"I am not here to apportion blame to the bike, the road or the weather. I am unable to make a decision because of insufficient evidence.

"It is clear there was an accident for reasons that remain unclear."

Caroline has called for BMW to release a report on the crashed bike but the firm withheld it from the inquest on the grounds it “was prepared in contemplation of possible legal proceedings and therefore remains legally privileged”.

A BMW spokesman said afterwards: “The investigation showed that all of the motorcycle’s parts were functioning as they should and there was no evidence found of any kind of mechanical problem or failure which caused or contributed to this accident.”