it’s good to be back in the twike! we start out early and make our way out of kaliningrad city. on very, very bad and bumpy roads which only get better after we leave the city behind us. we drive along the coast and through some old villages which have both old german houses and newer russian additions. this gives the villages a haphazard look – very organic 😉 some last pictures from russian territory: about 30 kms later, we arrive at the smaller of two border crossings into poland. russian formailities (not counting pictures and questions about TW560) are […]
тдб2015 – день3: Калининград
join us discovering kaliningrad on our first drive-free day during TDB2015. those only interested hard-core TWIKE action: there is a parallel universe, where one can use one’s own legs to get around town :o) after sleeping just 3 hours, i get up quite refreshed and head down to have some breakfast. the situation in the breakfast room was thoroughly russian: dozens of people in a room devoid of any interior design, filled with small tables and worn down seats probably from the 80’s. when i finally make it to the buffet, there are no plates and no forks. half the […]
TDB2015 – Day2: pushing the limits of 15.75Ah
today, we shall be – without planning for it – pushing the limits of distances which can be covered with the battery capacity available to TW560 within one day. [spoiler alert: today, we’ll be driving a whopping 542kms.] everything starts out very normal: i get up early and put some finishing touches on an entry for TDB2015. the skylights in my – frankly awesome – hotel room i forgot to close freely let in all sunlight available after sunrise at about 0400. whilst checking-out i see the electrical installations of our hotel. only *real* men could feel safe with this […]
TDB2015 – Day1: Tallin to Riga
finally: our trans-european TDB2015-tour starts today! after getting back to villa poska around midnight we both sleep very well. helped by a sunrise around 0400 we get up around 0630 and are treated to home-cooked porridge. our goal for today is to reach riga. tallin looks grand, bathed in golden sunlight – morning traffic is heavy and it takes us about half an hour to cross the city centre. leaving tallin behind us, an important task is at hand: our traditional team picture for the tour, our ninth adventure together! we venture out into the countryside on small roads, as […]
TDB2015 – prologue, part 2
today, everything we planned for tdb2015 is coming together – literally! since jc and i spent the first part of the day separately, it might make sense to see what we were up to one by one. let’s start with JC’s story we left the action with jc on a ferry to helsinki with TW560 generating quite some interest and keeping jc busy explaining what a twike is all about. the ferry arrives on time and finland welcomes TW560 for the first time. we discovered just a few hours before that the ferry ports for finnlines and the one we […]
TDB2015 prologue: go!
First update for TDB2015: JC picked up TW560 Sunday afternoon and drove to Lörrach without any problems. Currently, both TW560 and JC are on a Finnline Ferry to Helsinki – a 29 hour trip. We will meet up on Wednesday evening around 1930 at Tallin Airport, with me arriving from Rome. GPS tracking will be active sometime tomorrow evening. (When it’s no longer tracking me in Italy) We are really looking forward to our newest TWIKE adventure!
TDB2015 t-17: hello russia & good news again!
wow, time is moving fast! hurrah – our russian visas have come through! we’re really happy that this part of our trip is happening. we’re both looking forward to visiting kaliningrad! in the meanwhile i’ve found a way to offer up-to-the-minute gps tracking that looks and works like the map latitude generated for me two years ago. i really liked the feature in the past where people would keep refreshing our site just to see where we were and send us poi’s whilst en-route. hope you will like it again. emissionless’ homepage will be getting a location badge in the […]
TDB2015…lots of news! (t-53d)
planning all aspects of TDB2015 is a very interesting task. we’re happy to announce that one of the most important parts of these preparations has been completed: how to get TW560 to tallin, the starting point of our adventure this year. you might remember us lamenting the complexities of this task in one of our last blog entries. even after having had the chance to negotiate with a car importer from estonia, we were still at an amount of money we were unwilling to invest in just getting TW560 to its starting point. so, after thinking somewhat out of the […]
fondue in malans – a two-day TWIKE trip
as you might know, the swiss TWIKE driver’s association organizes various events every year. since we’re in switzerland, fondues and related events are “de rigeur” during the cold season. this year, we’ve been treated to a total of 4(!) such events for the club alone – one of the better ones is away from the usual swiss gravitational centres: far off in the grison alps. i’ve already blogged about one of theses events here. this year, the grison event is going to be held in the wine-producing foothills of malans at a winery. both myself and my trusted co-pilot and […]
TDB2015: planning and preparations are progressing
time is a wonderfully fluid thing – just a moment ago, we were looking at a counter for TDB2015 at 130 days…and today we’re already at 80 to go! we’re currently applying for our russian visas – nothing has changed here from 20 years ago: you answer a TON of questions, need a “sponsor” from within, every step within the territory has to be accounted for and you need to prove your medical insurance covers russia by providing a written confirmation by your insurer. they were asking for all countries i visited during the last 10 years: an interesting challenge […]