TWIKE 560 Adventures

i’ve always liked hypermiling. back in my petrol-fueled days i’d try to squeeze as many km’s as possible out of any given tank. (my record with our family’s volvo s80 was 1687km)

a TWIKE is a very, very light vehicle. consumption is easily affected by small factors – if you’re serious about consumption, you will find plenty of things on your TWIKE to optimize.

this is also why twike pilots see their consumption vary by high margins throughout the year. wind, temperatures, tire pressure, weight, rain (…snow), lights etc. can make a large impact on consumption. why?

not only is – in comparison to petrol – not much energy available in the first place, but consumption levels are already very, very low, too. Any – for normal cars inconsequential – additional friction adds up very quickly.

for a long time now, i’ve wanted to see how well TW560 holds up in this regard. i waited for a perfect day (not too hot, no wind), calibrated the computer to show distance and consumption as precisely as possible (TW560’s computer’s model can be made very exact by providing tyre circumference measurements and other data)

one afternoon everything was perfect and i decided to go on a round trip starting at my village – a round trip guarantees that i will not be able to profit from any descent that i don’t climb in the first place.

my trip for today.

not only is the trip itself a very nice one – i was very happy to make it back with a very, very good result:

I drove 154kms with a consumption of ony 37.7Wh/km.
proof that i wasn’t just crawling along is my average speed of 41km/h.

37Wh/km is the consumption level of many electric bikes, not 250kg+85kg vehicles.

A very good feeling: tw560 has still got it and i am proud to own one of the worlds most economical vehicles!