Talk:Kevin Ash

Wobble and crash connection synth/Frankie?

Personally I think it makes perfect sense to describe the crash Keven Ash had and then follow that with mention of the complaints about speed wobble and the redesign of the front end, here and in BMW R1200GS. But unless I'm missing something, none of the sources actually make that connection. So putting the two together seems to be WP:SYNTH and WP:FRANKENSTEIN. Anyone reading Wikipedia is clearly being led to believe that Ash's bike crashed because of speed wobble, and that event prompted BMW to redesign the bike. But we have no idea why Ash crashed, and some sources say his death was caused by being hit by another bike after he stood up following the crash. We have no sources saying BMW redesigned the front end because of Ash's death. So I'd worry that someone will say, "The R1200GS's speed wobble killed Keven Ash. Wikipedia says so."

I know Biker Biker and Brianhe have followed this so I'm curious what they think. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:04, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Haven't delved into this but it's curious that there were rumors of high speed wobble on the Honda ST1300 resulting supposedly in some police cops' death(s) in Britain. Just thinking out loud, maybe an article covering redesigns as a result of weave instability, or a section in Bicycle and motorcycle dynamics? Of course this wouldn't alleviate synth issues but at least provide a home to link substantiated (or even suggested) problems like this. I think it's also been raised as an issue in motorcycle land speed record incidents, forget which machine but I think it was one I recently worked on. Edited: If it's useful, there's also a description of a tankslapper in Melissa Holbrook Pierson's The Perfect Machine, page 42-43: [23]. — Brianhe (talk) 03:37, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Dennis, I checked the sources and they don't directly link the redesign to Kevin Ash's incident. However the cited April motorcycle.com bit does quote from an Italian source that mentions him. Translated (by machine, touched up by me): "Following rumors circulating on the Internet, which have linked the fatal accident to Kevin Ash with the need to make the call to the steering of the new GS, we approached BMW Italy who categorically denies any causal link between the incident and damage to the motorcycle. Technical evaluations carried out by the South African authorities have ruled that there were technical problems with the bike."[24] — Brianhe (talk) 03:51, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

If it's not beating a dead horse, this source (OneWheelDrive) says that the R1200-Ash issue has caused "consumer concern." — Brianhe (talk) 00:04, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it's overkill. It makes me feel better to be sure a connection between the crash and the redesign is made by good sources we can cite. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 03:43, 25 April 2013 (UTC)