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 […]

A quick visit to Vienna – TW560 travels to Vienna on its own!

Finally, I get to go to Vienna again! With my new job I’m travelling considerably less than before and have no direct responsibility for Austria anymore. An upcoming series of official functions in Vienna, however, have me fully booked for 2 days and I thought to myself hmm… how about extending the trip to visit some friends and stay with my family and work out of the Vienna office? Everyone I got in touch with was very exited at the prospect and my agenda for my week in Vienna filled up in no time. My company has a global policy […]

Day 3/3: Switzerland. Just. Perfect.

Welcome back to the last day of a 3-day EV-tour across 6 passes and 3 countries. In the last entry we made it to the duty-free haven of Livigno. The elderly hotel owner who had gladly let us charge over night had called some of her family over to see us off personally. Livigno is located in a high-lying valley with one road leading to Italy and two to Switzerland. After checking road conditions we decided against the Bernina pass and (much narrower and notoriously closed at a minutes’ notice) Forcola di Livigno road and head towards the Passo di […]

Day2/3: 15°, 0°, 22°, -2° & No.4, Take II

Welcome back! After driving to the highest point in Europe yesterday, our trip today will take us above 2200m three times, one of the passes will be the famous Passo di Stelvio at 2758m, just a few meters below Europe’s highest point reachable by road…All this using electric energy only 🙂 This entry will be longer than usual – many very nice experiences to write about. It rained all night. Sleeping right beneath a skylight helped me be acutely aware of this. Whilst lying awake, I visualize a brilliant day without rain and us having a very nice day. The […]

Day1 – Our Objective: Drive to the highest point in Europe

I start early at 6am – Saturday mornings are usually not a problem traffic-wise, except for Saturdays when school vacations start (this Saturday…) – as I wrote in my last post, preparations for this trip were changed at a very late stage and I’m just compensating for traffic by leaving slightly earlier than initially planned. The best way to make some distance – because I’ve literally driven every single possible road to Austria and want to get to somewhere I don’t know yet quickly – is to drive on the motorway. An interesting trade-off is when you want to get […]

3-Day Tour: To the highest Point in Europe

A new multiple-day TWIKE-adventure – A new TWIKE team – A new goal to reach! After visiting the three northern-most points of the Mediterranean and crossing Europe’s fourth-highest pass by TWIKE last year, I wondered: where is the highest point in Europe i could drive to without needing a 4×4 or special permits? Thanks to Wikipedia, getting the answer is not very difficult 🙂 June this year I added a new TWIKE adventure to my “upcoming activities” widget: Drive to the highest point in Europe reachable by an official, tarmacked road without special permits. Theoretically, reaching this point and getting […]

TWIKEing in Spain

This is a quick re-cap of my two weeks in Spain this year. Since I’m on vacation I’ll be brief. As you might know, part of my extended family is from Spain. Owning and not renting means we get treated to local stuff as apartment owner’s meetings and energy bills 🙂 I’ve already written about Spain’s exemplary power bills and wished for us in Switzerland to have the same level of detail. This year, I’m treated to the newest numbers and they’ve just gotten better! Over 40% of all energy in Spain is from renewable sources! It’s always interesting to […]

vogese alps, take 2

my trip to the vogese alps just a few weeks ago was extremely nice. i couldn’t stop talking about the beautiful landscapes, quaint little villages and the very nice chalet jc and i stayed in. my wife and i then decided to retrace the same route during the week-end around may 1st. View two-day trip in a larger map the drive to freiburg was really nice and relaxing, no rain and no feldberg-recharge, beautiful views – the place jc and i chose for recharging the TWIKE last time also “recharges” people in other ways – it hosts a multitude of […]

Vandalism – Day3

The next day promises to be be a brilliant one – all the grey clouds are gone and i make my way back to delémont. i get off the train and am truly looking forward to a very relaxing ride back home when, coming around a corner, i am greeted with a very unusual sight. from a distance one thing was clear, TW560 had been pushed over and the canopy was open. i had a very bad feeling creeping up in my stomach. getting closer things turned out to be worse than expected! TW560 had been pushed around, rolled around, […]