TWO motorcyclists, friends since schooldays, died in high speed crashes just a second apart on a notorious stretch of North Yorkshire road, an inquest heard yesterday.

Dean Ayres, 24, and John Binks, 26, were on a pleasure ride from their Harrogate homes on October 11 - just four days after Mr Binks passed his test - when their machines collided with oncoming vehicles on the A61, near Markington.

Coroner Jeremy Cave, sitting at Harrogate, recorded accidental death verdicts on the pair who became two of eight victims claimed by the 12-mile stretch of the road, between Harrogate and Ripon, last year.

Mr Cave heard how Mr Ayres, an engineer, of Durham Way, Harrogate, had been riding his Yamaha and Mr Binks, a gas fitter and pipelayer from nearby Lincoln Grove was on a Kawasaki, which he had only ridden once before.

Richard Williams, a passenger in a van overtaken by the pair had made a statement in which he had put their speed at 80mph "at least" and had said one was travelling 12 feet behind the other. One hit a Suzuki and the other ploughed into a BMW.

A police investigation concluded that speed had been a significant factor. The motorcycles had been travelling "very fast" with the Kawasaki drifting wide on a bend, crossing the centre line and beginning to slide along the road and under the rear offside wheel of the Suzuki.

The Yamaha rider was likely to have seen the Suzuki careering across his path and taken avoiding action, unaware of the approach of the BMW which it hit head-on. There had been less than a second between the two collisions.