A mother-of-two died in a road crash on the A9 only hours after picking up her first motorcycle.

Her husband had been travelling behind her when she smashed into the central reservation on the road in Perthshire on Saturday evening

Sharon Topping, 38, from Dalcruin Gardens in Moodiesburn in North Lanarkshire, died at the scene after the crash on her new Honda motorbike.

Her husband Stephen paid tribute to his "outgoing" wife who was mother to their two sons, Aydan, 16, and Rhys, 12.

Stephen, 40 said: "Sharon was very outgoing. She was always up for trying new things. She did a parachute jump for the first time last year.

"She had taken motorbike lessons without me knowing, and she passed her CBT [Compulsory basic training] last Tuesday. I came back last week and she was wearing the biking leathers.

"I wasn't happy but she felt very confident in riding the bike and with her being so outgoing it's difficult to say no."

He said she had been looking at bikes all week on eBay and eventually bought one on Saturday morning.

Stephen said the bike she chose was "the one she really wanted" and they decided to pick it up that afternoon.

Stephen said they then arranged that she would drive her new vehicle home, with him on his own motorcycle close behind.

He said said: "We'd been driving for a couple of hours that day and we kept stopping every wee while to see how it was going.

"She kept saying 'this is brill' and 'this is great'. We had rules that I was always behind her.

"She was startled by an oncoming vehicle and she had to take an action to move to the outside lane and she couldn't stop and she hit the reservation. I ran up to her and put her on her back. There was no pulse but I started breathing in to her mouth. I wasn't trained in CPR but I didn't know what else to do.

"I knew immediately she was dead but I didn't want to believe it. I was in a state of shock."

Stephen said he and Sharon were childhood sweethearts and that she had asked him out when she was only 16 years old. The couple had been together ever since.

Stephen said: "I'm drained. It's blurry and I'm still in shock. She was a beautiful, loving, hard working mother. We loved food and drink and always went for curries and wine. I'm really going to miss her.

"There have been lots of cards and messages through the door. The funeral will be in memory of her life."

Sharon worked as a store manager at Argos in East Kilbride.

Messages of condolences have been left on social networking site Facebook pages by friends of the mother.

One friend, Robert Heron, posted: "SAD DAY. THE ROUGES WILL LOOK AFTER YOU SHARON. R.I.P DOLL , SLEEP TIGHT XX."

Sharon was riding her Honda CG125 motorbike southwards on the A9, just south of Pitlochry, when she left the road and collided with the central reservation.

The A9 was closed southbound for several hours whilst crash investigators examined the scene. Diversions were put in place.

A spokeswoman for Tayside Police asked anyone who witnessed the collision to get in touch with them on 0300 111 222.