Erin Baker: How should bikers react to losing a friend?

Never had so many arguments over a bloody semi-colon in my life. We went to the Isle of Man TT last year with my boyfriend, who said of Henry, “I didn’t want to like him – he was so posh and excitable – but I couldn’t help it; he was brilliant.” 

I knew and liked Henry very much, but I had only known him a few years, mostly through work. The death, five years ago, of Kevin Ash, my motorcycling correspondent when I was Telegraph Motoring Editor, and a friend for over a decade, utterly floored me. Perhaps simply because it was the first sudden death of a friend. Perhaps because I got to know his wife and daughters, or because I was heavily pregnant. Who knows? One of the many, many discussions afterwards, every time, for motorcyclists, is what to think about riding a bike.

After Kevin died, his wife got back on a bike and threw herself into it. She told me it was her’s and Kevin’s life, and she didn’t want to let go of that. Perfectly understandable, and she became a very good and brave rider. I think she made the right choice.

I pottered about a bit on two wheels after Kevin’s funeral but I had lost my mojo; Kevin was the best road rider we all knew, so if even he could be killed while riding… And now, with Henry gone, that’s it for me and bikes. Memories of our few days at the TT still echo through my mind, together with Henry’s boyish, boundless excitement at finally having got there, and the race informs the debate on bikes.

Many respected riders have been calling for the TT to be banned for years, but more call for it to carry on, to be celebrated as one the last motorsport events unhindered by health and safety. And the TT sums up the difference between petrolheads like me and petrolheads like Henry: he utterly lived it. Lived the speed, the passion, and intensity, the history, the #fever of it all. I’m sure he knew people who died in bike and car crashes, but it didn’t touch the deep, deep love he had for it all. My passion for it all just doesn’t go that deep: I’m a fair-weather petrolhead in comparison with Henry, and a little ashamed about that; I wonder every year whether the TT is a good or bad thing.

In the end, there’s an equation to be done, that pitches enthusiasm against a life half lived, with risk as the equalising factor. Where one draws the line with risk, where one strikes the balance, is an individual choice, thank God. My life will be a little greyer, a little flatter, without bikes and the wind in my hair on a sunny spring day. Henry and the hundreds of racing drivers and riders throughout history, chose the passion, chose the #fever, while those of us who continue to hesitate, who draw back to watch from the verge, wonder all the time if there’s a fuller life to be led.

Bruce McLaren summed it up best in his tribute to fellow team-mate Timmy Mayher: “The news that he had died instantly was a terrible shock to all of us, but who is to say that he had not seen more, done more and learned more in his few years than many people do in a lifetime? It would be a waste of life to do nothing with one’s ability, for I feel that life is measured in achievement, not in years alone.”