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!
motorrad
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!)
This was from Edersee to Bendorf (near Koblenz) like this. There was a risk of rain so we didn’t ride the whole tour Lake – Edersee. That area is very much recommended with nice roads all around!
In the half-way of this day we noticed that the Ducati’s chains are very loose! Luckily we found a car and motorcycle garage where they tightened the chains right away!
As we got closer to Koblenz there was a very nice road with multiple tight corners!
I let the Ducati ride first.
At first we rode through small roads to Beelitz-Heilstätten abandoned hospital. This is where A.Hitler had his testicles fixed (contoversal?) We checked few smaller buildings in the area. Little bit later we arrived in Zerbst/Anhalt -city and first we’re impressed by the middle-aged gate, but then we saw 2 high towers nearby. It was the ruins of old St. Nicolai church. It was such a beautiful place!
Soon after this city we crossed the river Elbe with Reaction ferry
So there’s no engine in this Ferry but still it takes you to the other side!
When our route took us to Harz-mountains it had been raining a little. So we had to ride the nice corners with wet road. Luckily at the end of the day we had some nice corners near Edersee area and it was dry there!
Here’s the route we took.
You can follow this trip in facebook (https://www.facebook.com/PVTourinki/), mostly in Finnish.
In instagram (https://www.instagram.com/gozamite/) and in moottoripyora.org forum (http://www.moottoripyora.org/keskustelu/showthread.php/289047-Parlez-Vous-TouRinki), only in Finnish!
And as you can guess the trip is called “Parlez-Vous TouRinki”!
Day 1
www.motocaching.net -Check these pages to find places near you!
In 2015 we had a group ride with motocachers few times but we also decided to do it “bigger” in 2016. So we took the boat to Tallinn and spent 4 days outside Finland. We visited over 20 caches: 3 castles, 2 waterfalls, 2 special cliffs, an old submarinebase and an old nuclearbase and ofcourse many roads.
Boat arrives to Tallinn 09.30 (thursday morning) am and 10am we were already in the first place!
This is Tallinn TV-tower (https://motocaching.net/en/cache/view/id6336) where you can visit in 170 meters to see the view but we only visited the parking area and soon continued to the next place.
This is Jägala waterfall (https://motocaching.net/en/cache/view/id6334), only 30km’s east from Tallinn.
Then we also rode some nice roads with more corners than usually in Estonia:
From Leesi to Loksa https://motocaching.net/en/cache/view/id4975 and
from Loksa to Vihasoo (following the coastline) https://motocaching.net/en/cache/view/id4978
Somewhere there in the middle we visited the old submarine base (From the Russian rule).
This is amazing abandoned place where I have visited before. But it still makes me think about the working conditions during Russian rule! https://motocaching.net/en/cache/view/id4977
Here’s a video from Hara to Loksa village:
Next we had another waterfall, over 30 meters high!
This is Valaste waterfall quite close to Russian border, there’s also a beautiful view to the sea (Gulf of Finland) https://motocaching.net/en/cache/view/id6335
We spent the night in Mustvee, a small city beside the Lake Peipsi. This is a huge lake with half of it belonging to Russia.
Early morning in Lake Peipsi.
…to be continued
Eli soratiet Kirkkonummella.
I live in the city (municipality) called Kirkkonummi. Here are some possible gravel roads to ride with motorcycle (if you like that stuff!?) These are the ones with no dead-end, so you can actually continue riding without turning back. This is map part 1:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1YLJ-tpXfA4TDCePogyMZ72qw7P4&usp=sharing
And here is map part 2:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=15jh647UQ6s3biW98g_sS58UE1qI&usp=sharing
Some more roads actually goes out of the Kirkkonummi. But these few roads gives a somekind of possibility to practice riding in the gravelroad.
Tuesday March 15 was the day when I went to garage and took my Honda out (BMW is still waiting for the 1st ride).
I took a short ride to Lauttasaari in Helsinki to check one motocaching.net -cache someone had made during the winter. The place is actually not legal to ride with the motorcycle but it was in the middle of the day so there were not too many people around so I took the risk and rode my bike up to the small hill with this cannon.
There’s also a viewing platform very near from where you can see the south-western parts of Helsinki.
Wednesday 16th of March was much warmer so I even got 1 friend with me and we rode to Vuosaari to check 1 breakwater where you can also ride. Ocean is already without ice and there were few swans flying around beautifully!
Here’s my Honda VFR1200X Crosstourer with my friends KTM 990SMT at the Ruusuniemi breakwater in Vuosaari. This is also a cache at motocaching.net!
Then on friday morning it was below zero and some snow was in the ground (and on my Honda too!)
Now it seems that we’ll have to wait many days until we can ride again!
Helsinki motorcycle exhibition 2016 started today.
Honda Africa Twin
KTM 1290 SuperDuke GT
Yamaha MT-10
These were all in the house! And there were few other bikes too!
Check all of my photos here!
Naked 1000 Honda doesn’t look modern, it doesn’t have traction control and it doesn’t give impressive power…
But it definately is a gentlemans choice from 1000cc naked bikes. And even it’s not very modern it still looks GOOD!
Here’s a nice review of the japanese naked super bikes:
http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/naked-bike-comparison-honda-cb1000r-vs-kawasaki-z1000-vs-suzuki-gsx-s1000-vs-yamaha-fz-09-review
(The exhaust pipe is ugly as hell! It looks like there’s a snail under the engine!)
GoZa Mite 