Ural Roikka Rallies with Orvo Valila

After trying to find it for a couple of days I got so fed up with it that I ordered a whole new wiring harness and replaced every single wire in the thing. It took a couple of afternoons/sixpacks but was definitely worth it.

Not only (for the first time) do I know for sure what wire exactly goes where and does what, I can also rest assured that there are no more of those horrible wraparound splices covered with cloth tape there.

Some of the splices that I found inside the old harness under the tank (no more than a few inches away from the petcock) made me cringe and reach for yet another beer...

Long story short, the bike is running better than ever now with the recent rebuild and all and I even managed to salvage one of those alternators gone last year with the help of the local shop and everething seems to be suspiciously well. Then again, the only part that I have not touched yet in the whole bike is the gearbox which is probably next to go. I do have a spare one ready for that so maybe it will not give me grief until I get rid of the spare."

[And here are the pictures from this year's Roikka!]

Roikka 2001 was arranged in Jämsänkoski in Central Finland, about 50 km from where I was born. Only problem there was that at the time we were living in Southern Finland, about 350 klicks away. Even that would not have been a problem except for the fact that it happened to be a very rainy summer that year. On the way there and back (and most of the time during) we managed to catch every f-----g shower that there was. Sure enough, rain gear is just for that but still…

Some of the photos you already have in a form or another but this time around you get the originals without any cropping or other form of editing.

The idea of Ural Roikka Rally is pretty much the same every year. It's always arranged around the weekend of July 20^th. On Friday the bikes and the bikers start arriving and Friday night is pretty much spent in walkabouts, kicking tires and getting to know your neighbors over a beer or two. In the photo DSC03942.JPG there is a couple that we met with their K-750. We've been neighboring ever since at the rallies for three years now. Lucky for us as they are a wonderful couple who always take care of our reservations and such as most of us are scattered around the world. I'm not sure if they always feel that lucky as it tends to get a tad loud towards the night by our location…

In 2001 there were some incredible bikes there. There is the usual bunch of neat clean line old-school M72 choppers, but also a Ural with a red sauna in the sidecar, and another Ural with a Tatra air-cooled V4 engine. There was even one with a Citroen GS 1300cc OHC Boxer engine! Incredible sound on that one, let me assure you.

The partying was well going on at the time we got there. A fearless and possibly somewhat chemically encouraged duo went swooshing by to the Sauna from a skinny dip ride on a Ural.

On Saturday there is usually a convoy to somewhere nearby to gather and see something neat or do something fun or just to make the local Gramps Association’s pacemakers to skip a beat or two. The bikes are not really quiet and the men are not pretty, so the effect on the local inhabitants is usually about the same as when Hells Angels ride by although we tend to take ourselves a whole lot less seriously. (Let’s face it—how could we?) We are somewhat more social when given a chance and some beer.

The convoy photos are from a local marketplace. If it looks a tad chilly, that is not the case. It was f-----g FREEZING! The damn rain made my coil quit for awhile, and only because I knew in advance to be suspicious about that coil I got it fixed reasonably quickly.

Among these photos is a scan which is about six years old—Beijing—somewhere in Hudongs. The bike was just bought from the little shack behind Yan Sha (Kempinski Hotel/Lufthansa Centre.) The summer is still there… Ah, memory lane…"

Orvo

More CJs in Finland