A tweet
yesterday by Charley Boorman caused me great sorrow. He was announcing that
Kevin Ash had died in a road traffic accident in South Africa during the press
launch of a new BMW motorcycle. The news was confirmed by a release on the
website of the Daily Telegraph, one of the various newspapers and magazines for
which he wrote.
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| Kevin Ash |
BMW Motorrad released the following press statement: “It is with
deep regret that BMW Motorrad confirms the fatal injury of Kevin Ash in a
motorcycle accident during a launch event in South Africa. The accident
happened to the north of a town called George, 250 kilometres east of Cape
Town. Out of respect for Kevin's family and friends, no further information is
being made available at this time.”
BMW Motorrad UK’s General Manager, Adrian Roderick, made the following comment: “We are shocked and deeply
saddened to hear the awful news about Kevin Ash; one of the most well-liked,
experienced and respected journalists in the extremely close-knit motorcycle
community. Losing Kevin is a tragedy that will be felt across the entire
industry. He was a friend, as much as a journalist, and will be sorely missed.
Our heartfelt thoughts are with his family, friends and colleagues at this
awful time.” [...]
Kevin Ash
trained as an engineer and entered motorcycle journalism in 1991 as one of the
original founders of Fast Bikes magazine. He later joined MCN as a staffer and
later as Assistant Editor. In 1997 he decided to go freelance and began writing
for various papers, magazines and websites around the world – his latest
collaboration was with Dutch motorcycling website Testmotor – as well as being
the Telegraph’s motorcycling editor. He also gave rise to the well-known Ash on Bikes website.
As a
blogger and budding would-be motorcycling hack myself, I enjoyed Kevin Ash’s
style and his neutrality and honesty in his road test reports were a breath of
fresh air in the sometimes biased world of motorcycle journalism (Suzuki and
BMW did on occasion take umbrage at his write-ups, whilst he was declared persona non grata by Triumph for a
while). What’s more, such neutrality and straightforwardness was nothing short
of a tour-de-force for a freelancer: freelance journalists often have to tread
a fine line between reporting on a bike and sucking up to the manufacturer so
that they ensure that they get invited to their next press launch. As such I
looked up to him and took him as an example and an inspiration for my own
motorcycle writing. Therefore today I feel somewhat like an orphan.
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