Welcome back to the third day of this year’s TWIKE adventure to southern France. Today, again, we have a tasty mix of 2k+ alpine passes from our list waiting for us: 2361 m Col d’Izoard – France 2108 m Col de Vars – France 2715 m Col de la Bonette – France 2350 m Col de la Lombarde – France/Italy After spending the night in a very old and rustic place, we are greeted by yet another brilliant day with its first golden sun-rays filtering through the many trees around the property. We pack our stuff and set […]
TDAF2016 – Day2: Welcome to the French Alps
Part of TDAF2016 is about the ‘AF’ – the Alpes Françaises and TW560’s ‘task list‘ of highest roads in Europe which kicked-off last year with the visit to the highest road in Europe. Today we crossed-off following passes from our list: 2188 m – Little St Bernard Pass – France>Italy 2770 m – Col de l’Iseran – France 2645 m – Col du Galibier – France 2058 m – Col du Lautaret – France Spoiler alert: it was – yet again – an amazing day! After some fitful shut-eye I wake to heavy rain, dark grey and low-hanging clouds. Yuk. […]
TDAF2016 – Day1: TW560’s fitting 200k anniversary
Time flies when you’re looking forward to something! Just a blink of an eye ago, our counter on this site showed 7 weeks to go…and already it’s time to get in our trusted TWIKE for a new 10-day adventure across Europe. Although we had sustained torrential rainfalls during the last week – if someone told me that we were going to be driving through rain for our first day of TDAF2016, I insisted that our first day crossing Switzerland would be a picture-perfect day. The more I spoke about this first, perfect day, the more convinced I was that […]
TDAF2016: all systems GO!
We’re on the road! Really looking forward to our newest TWIKE adventure, TDAF2016. As usual, we’re going to be posting a travel log update about once a day. Follow us: with our GPS location updated every 5 minutes and accessible through an interactive map!
TW560’s *New Battery Pack Installed*
I’ve been hinting at this for a while now: TW560 is getting a major battery upgrade. Today, I’m very happy to report that the first phase of this upgrade has been completed. My TWIKE is definitely ready for our upcoming 11-day, 2500km yearly trip, TDAF2016. This upgrade has been in the making for a very long time – more than 18 (!) months, to be precise. Yet again, since this is a major investment in a 15-year old vehicle, I definitely wanted to invest all the time necessary to thoroughly evaluate and compare all options: Buy original packs from Fine […]
TDAF2016: Planning update
Planning for TW560’s 2016 adventure – TDAF2016 – is complete… well, as complete as it needs it to be 🙂 As last year’s trip pushed our limits somewhat, JC and I decided that this year’s trip would be focusing on the nicer sides of TWIKEing: Mountains & the sea. Fortunately, we live in a corner of this planet where both these things are easily reachable. Even more relaxing will be the fact that I’ve ordered and am waiting for a 52Ah lion-battery which should give us a 480km+ range on one charge (hoping it will be ready in time). With […]
560@ … TWIKEs in Interesting Places (TIP) – A campaign for 2016
TWIKE’s are timeless pieces of design. Every time I enter an old Italian city center square or a French village, a TWIKE doesn’t feel out of place – It just … seems to belong there and represent a past future we’re still waiting for. After having a little fun at a Tesla store end of last year … …and entering Indian shopping centres… I thought to myself: which other interesting places exist where a TWIKE could enter and be photographed to create a stunning and thought-provoking image of a TWIKE? I’m sure you know of a place and maybe know […]
Geneva Motor Show 2016 – mixed emotions
Geneva Motor Show – 10 years of visiting this event with an eye on electric mobility. Will we finally have the electric breakthrough? [Spoiler alert: Sadly, no] There are some signs, though. The image above is Rimac’s concept_one car, a 800kW, 1000+bhp all-electric supercar. Interestingly it is the #1 image hit when you search for Geneva’s 86th Motor Show. No breakthrough, but still a marked change. (#2 is Bugatti’s €1m+ Chiron) My focus, as every year, is: What are mainstream brands doing with regards to electric mobility? I haven’t written about the GVA Salon since 2012. This year, Twitter and […]
New motor burn-in trip
After TW560’s recent motor replacement Seb, a long-time reader of emissionless.ch, wished me luck with my next 191k. Since we hadn’t met for quite a while, I answered his comment by proposing a trip to perform a thorough burn-in for TW560’s new electric motor… and whilst doing so we could meet for some good food and wine. Just two weeks later, I had a two-day series of meetings in and around Geneva coming up – a perfect moment for such a burn-in, since Seb lives just around 80km from Geneva. With another meeting in Bern to take care of, everything […]
Fondue in Malans – a two-day trip, take 2
What I like about driving an extremely rare vehicle is the close-knit community it creates. Since there isn’t a wide network of commercially motivated help available, it’s important to know other drivers one can reach out to in case of questions or problems…or just to share good memories! The TWIKEklub traditionally organizes 4 events during winter (which has, thanks to global warming, been bringing us less snow every year for the past 10 years). Cold weather is ideal for traditional Swiss cheese-based dishes such as Fondue and Raclette. JC and I take part at most of the events – last […]