A quick update on this year’s upcoming long-distance trip with TW560 – TD2022, a two week break with a TWIKE The date is finally set and the general direction chosen: France & Spain. TW560 just got back from a pre-vacation check-up and in a radical change to previous years will start on a new set of tyres. TDE2022’s main trip page is active and GPS tracking of TW560 is ready for activation, too. Looking forward to some days off, It’s been a tough 6 months.
Repairs: Weird Lights-Out
A few days ago, TWIKE 560 started acting weridly – on the center console the left three LED’s turned on if the main lights were switched on, the right-hand blinker would work, the left hand one not. However, if the lights were off, then both blinkers would work fine. Every seasoned TWIKE pilot knows that this typically means one or more of the 12V fuses are blown and the center console typically – and oddly helpfully – shows which side of the TWIKE is affected by lighting the corresponding LEDs on the front panel. Looking at the TWIKE, this is […]
ODT: Adding the Nufenen pass to TW560’s list
Picture this: Mid-June – a beautiful day with very clear skies: I get up early and see the alps beckoning in the distance. Swiss Meteo’s prediction of the day was spot-on and the reason why I had started a full-range ‘trip-mode’ charge for my TWIKE the evening before. With a full day at my disposal, the evening before, I had started wondering where to go and what to visit. I’ve traveled extensively across Switzerland and have been to more places than many Swiss, including many of Switzerland’s beautiful road passes. There aren’t many left TW560 hasn’t been! Whilst looking at […]
emissionslos/emissionless – all new!
A new theme! More focus on photos – plus: finally, a responsive site for mobile devices! This blog has been on the internet for nearly 11 years now. All the details how and why this blog exists can be found here. Even though I had been already blogging in the mid-nineties (!), starting the blog in 2011 meant a full new start, complete with choosing the blog software, which in the 90’s didn’t exist and discovering which features were important to me. The choice fell on WordPress due to its configurability, extensibility and ease of use. After 2 months, I […]
Display Restoration
TW560’s display has become very dull after 25 years and reading data is difficult in direct sunlight. It has started to become a real problem. Not only for everyday reading but also for me during my trips I have been writing about on my blog – a recent one from my trip to Portugal below. What can be done? A quick Google search later, it turns out that buffing plastics can be exceedingly easy (toothpaste, cloth) but can also yield the exact opposite of what one would like to achieve – more scratches – or very difficult, including lots of […]
2022 Pack capacity update
As every year, it is time to check the total capacity of TW560’s battery pack. After carefully balancing the pack, which took me the better part of a weekend, I was ready for a full day’s worth of TWIKEing. The pack health is excellent. Most cells are in-sync down to the millivolt – only 3 cells were a fraction off, which was easily fixed with balancing. My trip took me to Basel, the French Jura – all the way to La Chaux de Fonds…and back. The topography in the Jura is very hilly – this will have an impact on […]
Hello 2022
What a year 2021 has been! TWIKE 560 and I have had a great time. Thankful to have been in good health all along. Besides TW560 turning 20 this year and emissionless.ch as a blog existing 10 years, the main event this year was my multi-month trip to Portugal (TDP2021). If you haven’t read about it yet, you can start here. Traveling as a digital nomad, working from wherever, mixing vacation with my traveling life was a revelation. It turned out to be not only doable but very relaxing, productive and just plain liberating. I consider myself to be very […]
Backlog of entries: GONE!
Just 2 months ago, celebrating emissionless.ch’s 10 year anniversary and also here, mid-year, I promised to post all missing TWIKE adventure entries by the end of 2021. A herculean task: 25 entries in total. I am happy to report that this mission has been accomplished today! TDI2020 and TDI2019, my two summer holidays in Italy with my family and TDST2020, plus our recurring yearly trip to Southern Styria now are on the site and I’m looking forward to my readers enjoying the entries and the feedback I’m going to get. I’m listing the entries I’ve just published below: Trip to […]
10 years emissionless.ch
Wow, time flies when you’re having fun! emissionless.ch: 10 years of blogging fun keeping track of adventures documenting how life with one of the world’s most efficient vehicles is like being a go-to resource for TWIKE owners and would-be owners tips for every-day use and care being the go-tp address for people who’ve seen TW560 on the road somewhere far away and want to know more about the weird little spaceship they’ve just seen How did everything get started? By me discovering that traveling with a TWIKE was possible and enjoyable! …and this began even before I had purchased TW560! […]
How to Bleed TWIKE Brakes
During TDP2021 I noticed that the front friction brake was not working correctly – only the rear brakes…and those were also really bad. Since there is near to no information about TWIKE brakes and the different variants, I thought it would make sense to write about this vital part of the vehicle in a short entry. For context, there are three types of friction-based brake setups in TWIKEs (which typically get used very little): Split brake systems – legs brake back tyres via a back pedal setup, left hand brakes front wheel Very limited ability to brake with the front […]