History of the Finnish Ural Club, Uralroikka
In the beginning… a Finnish import company named Konela started to import Russian cars and tractors to Finland after World War II. Among those products they also imported a small amount of Ural M-63 bikes, as a test item, to Finland in the beginning of 1970’s.
The exact number of the imported bikes is not known, but the number is estimated to be about 50 pcs.
Quite soon Konela realized that these motorbikes did not meet Finnish markets and also there were plenty of quality and warranty problems with these bikes. Therefore Konela stopped Ural importing.
Anyway few of the bikes remained in Finland by enthusiastic bikers who were willing to struggle with the unexpected problems of Urals.
The history of the Uralroikka begins in the year 1986 when four Ural riders met in a Classic bike meeting in Finland. They had heard rumors of other Ural bikers by they had not seen each other’s before. They got to know each other, wrote down each other’s names, addresses and telephone numbers and promised to be in touch in the future.
In the end of 1988 Mr. Teuvo Leppänen (one of the enthusiastics) had announcements in several motorbike magazines and called for Finnish Ural drivers to contact him.
Altogether 15 Ural riders/bikes were found in Finland.
The very first Ural meeting was held in 1991 where about 10 bikers were present
At the same year, 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed and that event had a large impact for Ural “hobby” in Finland. All in sudden it became possible to import spare parts and bikes from Russia on your own.
In 1990 Uralroikka had 15 members but in 1993 Uralroikka had already ~100 members.
At the moment Uralroikka has about 400 members. Quite many of the members have several Russian bikes.
It is not a condition for the membership to have Ural, Dnepr or Chinese Chang Chiang (or any other eastern 4-stroke boxer), but most of the members do have one or at least are planning to buy one in the future.
There are also several Ural owners in Finland who are still not aware of our club, are not willing to join the club or have not paid their membership fees. Private persons have also imported Russian bikes that are not registered into Finnish road transportation. Therefore it is difficult to say how many Ural and Dnepr bikes really exist in Finland, but the amount is estimated to be between one and two thousand.
When the Uralroikka was founded, it was agreed that the club has two mottos:
1) URALISM, THE SUSTAINABLE WAY
2) THROUGH DIFFICULTIES TO THE VICTORY
It is up to every member to find out the exact and the final meanings of these mottos…
By the way…
The name of our club, Uralroikka. It is a bit difficult to explain it!
The word roikka means in Finnish language extension cable (you should be in the reach of extension cable when you are driving an Ural)
Also the word roikka refers to Michail Gorbatshov and his politics called perestroika (”restructuring”) in the late 1980’s.
The word roikka refers also to a Russian word troika (=triangle, three…) referring to a three wheeled motorbike with a sidecar.
Timo Pitkänen
2.1.2013
Info for our international visitors:
Mail: international@uralroikka.fi
International section of our forum: https://uralroikka.fi/pulinat/viewforum.php?f=37