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!
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 […]
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 […]
TDAF2016: A new TWIKE adventure
JC and I have started planning our newest TWIKE adventure. It will be a relaxed 9-10 day trip in June 2016 – taking us up to the highest points in Europe and back down to the sea. Can you guess where we’re heading? More to follow soon.
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 […]
ODT: Vorarlberg & Lake Constance
Contrary to my prediction in my last post, we’ve been having extremely nice weather late into the year – a week-end of sun and acceptable temperatures for driving without the canopy was coming up. Claudia, a close friend and long-time reader of my blog, had asked me to join me on a trip for some time now: 1+1= another awesome one-day-trip with TW560. Since there are many places we could head to, I asked Claudia if she had any preference: Appenzell and the upper Rhine valley. (Good choice!) We agreed to meet early morning in Winterthur. This left me with […]
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 […]