Most of you probably think: “What the hell… or Who the hell is Ulla Kulju?” Well here’s the whole story told by herself:
I was paralyzed in 2002 in the age of 15 in a snowboarding accident in Ylläs, Finland. I went through surgery and the doctors fixed my broken back with titanium. I decided at a very early stage that my accident won´t stop me for chasing my dreams. 6 months after my accident I went back to the slopes with monoski. On the same year I won gold medal in Finnish Championships in Slalom. Next year I raced against able bodied females in giant slalom and slalom, I came third in Finnish Championships. During my four years of alpine skiing in the Finnish Alpine Ski Team my highest achievement was European Cup silver in Giant Slalom and European Cup Bronze in Slalom.
At 2003 and 2005 I was nominated as an athlete of the year in Finland. I was also awarded as the most positive person in Northern Finland on the year 2005.
2006 I built few showcars and was awarded with 2nd place in young builder of the year and 2nd place in Hot Wheels 2006 show with most beautiful non-american car.
2007 I started sailing with multihulls. I had a Hobie Cat 21 Formula Catamaran and with it I raced around Finland. My greatest achievements in sailing were 4th place in British Championships with Challenger trimaran, 1st place in Ruotsinsalmi race with Hobie Cat 21F and 2nd place in Throne of Gulf of Botnia with Inferno 28 boat.
2008 I started Paragliding. I was the first paralyzed female in Finland to paraglide and get the licenses for it.
2010 I graduated as an Boat Manufacturing Engineer and as a Boat Designer from the Kymenlaakso university of Applied Sciences. After graduation I worked as a Mechanical Designer for Weldmec in Porvoo, where I designed aluminium work boats and oil recovery machinery for the oil catastrophy of Gulf of Mexico. 2011 I worked as a Project Manager and Mechanical Designer for Telemerkki, in Jokela. There I designed command bridges for warships and controlpanels for hospitals, my last project in Telemerkki was the command bridge for Viking Line Grace ocean liner. 2012 to 2014 I was an entrepeneur in the tattoo industry. I had my own tattoo parlor in centrum of Helsinki. 2014 I got a Design Engineer job from Etteplan Design Center where I design elevators and elevator machinery for Kone Oy.
I have two kids, Miko (8years) and Helka (2yrs).
After my accident in 2002 my only concern was that I will never get the change of riding a motorcycle. Or that´s what I thought. on May 2014 I desided to design and build my own adapted Honda CBR-F 600 1993 for me to use even though I am in a wheelchair. I designed and fabricated stabilizers for my Honda and switched the transmission to work with buttons on the handlebar. A year later in June 2015 I got the Honda fully road legal and approved for my use in the traffic. But that wasn´t enough for me.. I wanted and desired more. I desided to chase my dream of racing with motorcycles. I rode few track days with my CBR and fell in love with the feeling of riding fast. After that racing has been my passion, it´s something I want and need to do. It´s just amazing! I got invited to UK to meet Talan Skeels-Piggings who races with motorcycles and is paralyzed from the waist down. I got an amazing opportunity to have a track day in Silverstone. It was beoynd my dreams! It was something so great and fantastic! I also got advices from Andy Ibbot and I was more sure than ever that this is something that I want to do with all my heart. With the help of Andy´s training I got my speed up and my technique right. When I got back from UK, I began to find sponsors and companies to support me financially. Hard work paid off in october 2015 when I got my Yamaha YZF-R6 racebike with the help of my main sponsor 3M Finland (for the season 2016).
This text is borrowed from her facebook.
(Photo also from her facebook-page!)
And now the latest news is that she’s been invited to participate in the handicap RR World Championchips 2017 which are held in Le Mans 19-21 of May. Good Luck Ulla!
Harrastukset
I could do some demonstration of the bikes (and I probably will do later) but here are all the new interesting bikes for season 2017, shown to us by 44teeth.com (with BaronVonGrumble and his face! -You don’t see that too often!)
Hallitus ajaa uutta veroa. Tulevan veron lopullinen kertymä voi hyvinkin olla jopa negatiivinen ja laskelmia tästä on useita. Hondaa maahantuovan yrityksen Stefanie Brandt-Tallqvist sanoo sen blogissaan niin paljon paremmin kuin minä niin lukekaa sieltä! Ranttilaiset -blogi
Aiheesta on nyt myös aloitettu nimien kerääminen adressiin. Alle vuorokaudessa nimiä on kerätty jo 10000! Laita sinäkin nimesi täällä: http://www.adressit.com/moottoripyorat_pidettava_verottomina
Nyt myös MP69 on ottanut kantaa mahdolliseen veroon, lue lisää täältä.
(Sorry to you all international readers, this is about possible new tax in Finland which is about to come… so writing is only in Finnish!)
Finnish magazine (Bomber Magazine) takes KTM 1290 SD GT for a test. The main things they wanted to test were wheelies, drifting and braking with rearwheel up! Like this:
Day 21
We rode from the northern parts of Poland through Lithuania to Latvia, like this. It was the longest ride in this trip but it didn’t feel like it at all. First of all it was a great weather!
We made a short visit to the hill of crosses and that made a nice break in the boring ride in those endless straights in Lithuania (and the road A12).
And in the beginning of the day we had some nice small roads of Poland and Lithuania!
We also stopped for awhile in the tripoint of Poland, Russia (Kaliningrad) and Lithuania. Here’s a short video:
And then about 150km’s later it was time for the “Hill of Crosses” (which I think is a junkyard!)
Here is the link to all the pictures I took in this strange place in the middle of Lithuanian countryside.
Here’s one excample:
In Latvia we stopped in Riga dam, it’s a huge reservoir & dam with powerplant and there’s a road going on the top of the dam. The views over the reservoir are quite nice!
We had a room from the nice Hotel Sigulda (my fourth time here!)
Day 22
This was 300km’s from Sigulda to Tallinn (and ofcourse the ferry Tallinn – Helsinki and the final ride from Helsinki harbour to home!)
First break was ofcourse in the border between Latvia-Estonia and the legendary Hesburger!
After this break it started raining! And we waited about 1 hour for it to stop (in Pärnu). Soon after Pärnu the road was dry again and we had time to visit the sandpit-lake near Saku. And I made some SocialMedia updates there (again!)
The final trouble we got in the harbour while waiting the ferry. We noticed that Ducati’s rear tyre is almost empty! But luckily there were many american cars trying to get to the ferry and some of them had the tyreweld-stuff. So Maria could ride her red Monster in to the ferry and then From Helsinki harbour to home!
Thank you for ALL the readers who have been following this trip!! There will be more!
This day we were riding in the Jura mountains in Switzerland and few km’s in France and few in Germany. The 266 km’s route was like this.
First it looked like the weather would be as hot as it had been many days before, but actually pretty soon it was cloudy and +25 celsius felt quite nice!
The views were still very impressive in Jura mountains! It would be nice to spend more time riding here too.
After couple hours of riding there was a raincloud following us.
And soon it was raining.
The most beautiful part of this days route it was raining so I didn’t take too many pictures. But that ride very near to Ch-Fr border (Cote-du-Doubs in the north side of La Chaux-de-Fonds) is a very nice road!
After 3 hours of rain it finally stopped and we switched to France to avoid the traffic in Basel. And after a short visit in France we switched to Germany and that was the last time in France in this trip for us!
We had an apartment in Lörrach to stay the night. So we made the dinner and breakfast ourselves! That was nice for a change…
Next morning Timo would go on his own way (straight to north and taking the ferry from Travemünde to Helsinki) and me and Maria would go on riding slowly home.
Is unfortunately closed.
In the morning we didn’t think about it. But later in the afternoon it was obvious -The Alps are now gone! Here’s the route for the day 15.
At first it was the big road (but not boring!) to north and Briancon-town and still after that the big road continues until Col du Galibier. We did ride this just few days earlier (Day 10) and I think it was a good idea to come here again! It is a great mountain Pass!
On the nort side of Valloire we took the highway A43 to the small city of La Chambre and from there the last mountain Pass in the Alps -Col de la Madeleine
We had a break in the top of Madeleine, Me and Timo ate some soup!
Riding up:
Riding down:
This was also a very hot day… So after mountain passes we had to ride through Albertville and on the north side of the Olympic City there was a valley and quite a lot of traffic when closing the city of Annecy… luckily the Lake Annecy was soon just beside the road and we took a swim in the beautiful clear turqoise water -nice refreshment in the middle of the day!
Then after city of Annecy I finally realized the the Alps are now behind!! We had some very nice mountain roads… but the views were quite boring comparing to the Alps. It was in the north side of Lake Geneva and it was the Jura mountains!
This road was very nice… It was mostly in the shadows of the trees and it didn’t feel too hot! Finally we arrived to our destination: The city of Les Rousses, and we ate dinner in very famous burger-restaurant, Chalet Regain!
Days 12 & 13 we did some riding between Menton – Monaco – Nizza. The Ducati got new chains and sprockets in Nizza and when we got the bike from Ducati Alpes Maritimes service it was only 10km’s when the rear brake caliper was loose!! They didn’t tighten the bolts at all! But ok, we could ride the Monster back to the Hotel and next day we started riding back north!
Day 14 started with very narrow mountain road from Menton towards the small village Peille. It is a beautiful old mountain village in the steep mountain wall!
Then after few more nice mountain roads it was all about Col de la Bonette and Cime de la Bonette! Cime de la Bonette is the highest possible paved road (without dead end) in Europe! At first the road north from Saint-Sauveur-sur-Tinée is very nice and fast ride! It has mellow bends and fast corners until Saint-Étienne-de-Tinée. This video starts about 2 km’s before this village!
Few km’s more and the road is more narrow and the corners get tighter. In 11:10 is the first hairpin… And then starts the real climbing!! I deside to stop for awhile in the place called Camp des fourches
Here is few old and abandoned houses (I think they’re related to Napoleon?) But then the climbing continues…
This video goes all the way to the top of Europe (2802 meters!)
And then some photos!
Timo & Maria, my fellowriders in this tour! (Timo with Honda and Maria with Ducati)
After spending some nice time in heights starts the ride down from Bonette. It is still an endless amount of hairpins and spectacular views. But there’s an interesting old abandoned fortress-looking building quite near… So I stop there.
We went in to see what was it all about?
There was some “drawings” in the mountain-wall too, made of stones!
“My God, it’s full of stars!”
Then we also climbed Col de Vars but at the moment I feel like I don’t remember it at all! It must be because Bonette was so beautiful, magnificent and spectacular so I remember it much better!
But here’s a video from Col de vars:
Right after Vars, we entered the village Eygliers where we had our next accomodation. The only problem was how to find it?? I try to call them but they didn’t speak any English. It was very hot day, Maria and Timo were a littele bit frustrated and they rode to the village to ask if somebody knew where it was. And I found a lady who did speak good English and I asked her… And she told me that the place right in front of me!!
After the shower and changing the clothes Me and Maria desided to take a look of the fortress nearby. We didn’t know anything about it when we went there…
There was walls everywhere! It was almost like a labyrinth. It was also a very nice view to the other side of the valley!
The fortress is Mont-Dauphin, a small village with walls protecting it. It was built in late 17th century by the request of King Ludvig XIV. The fortress is 58 hectares and there’s about 150 people living in the village.
This is the gate to the village from the outside.
And from the inside.
Finally after spending some time in Mont-Dauphin it was 7pm! And usually you can’t get any food before 7pm!!! I think that’s totally crazy! We are hungry after riding all day!!
This was the route for the day 14!
Ride from the magnificent Chalet Sul Lago back to France was much nicer than the day before when we arrived.
Mt Cenis
In France we started riding the endless amount of hairpin corners and mountain passes! First we had Col du Télégraphe then Col du Galibier, Col d’Izoard and finally Col de Vars.
Here’s video climbing up the Col du Télégraphe from the north:
This climb ends in Valloire village and from the southside of Valloire starts the climb to Col du Galibier which is one of my favorites! It has a short tunnel on the top, but to reach even higher you have to take the alternative route and finally reach the 2645 meters.
Here’s video from the Col du Galibier
Col d’Izoard is more south and it starts from Cervières village (If you ride from north to south). The view on the summit is a little bit different than in many other mountain pass, the mountain walls are mostly gravel and stones! It is a barren sight!
Col d’Izoard is 2360 meters high!
Finally we had Col de Vars (2109m) where we had some ice cream!
We had the accommodation in the middle of Barcelonnette city. Here’s the route for the day 10.
GoZa Mite 