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 […]
One-Day-Trip: Swiss Jura
One-day trips are one of the nicest forms of TWIKE travel. After our last trip together, visiting the Italian part of Switzerland – Nico and i had always been wanting to take TW560 on another spin somewhere nice, together. As always, life goes by really quickly and Nico’s high-powered career with lots of international travel and myself being also quite busy didn’t help either. Finally, In January 2015 we fixed a date for our second adventure after a 3 year break… in July 2015! Already with some ev-travel experience himself, I asked Nico in which general direction he wanted to […]
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 […]
i3: one day with BMW’s ev-offering … & four swiss passes
not long ago, a petrol-head friend of mine converted from driving a 550hp bmw alpina to an i3. his first ever ev-drive was one i organized for him to participate at the world record attempt in zurich in 2013 where he was provided with a renault fluence z.e., an ev with one claim to fame: it was the first commercially available ev with a swappable battery that could be exchanged within a minute at designated drop stations. (…which never took off because the company behind this design feature went bankrupt. i wanted to visit their danish headquarters during my TDD2011 […]
154km – 37,7Wh/km – 41km/h avg.
i’ve always liked hypermiling. back in my petrol-fueled days i’d try to squeeze as many km’s as possible out of any given tank. (my record with our family’s volvo s80 was 1687km) a TWIKE is a very, very light vehicle. consumption is easily affected by small factors – if you’re serious about consumption, you will find plenty of things on your TWIKE to optimize. this is also why twike pilots see their consumption vary by high margins throughout the year. wind, temperatures, tire pressure, weight, rain (…snow), lights etc. can make a large impact on consumption. why? not only is […]
HOT!
Europe’s heat wave has reached Switzerland! Either go to the pool or… go up to 2000+m altitude.
Back to normal – commuting to work
Back to Switzerland after our 2850km trip across northern Europe means going back to work again – I thought i’d take you along on my daily commute to Zurich 🙂 I really like driving to work – i can choose from three different options. Today, you’re going to take the fastest one with me. Check out the alps in the background during most of the drive. (Every day they remind me of the wonderful roads waiting for me and TW560!)
how many roberts do *you* need?
i’ve always wanted to somehow visually show the relative energy our legs can contribute to a TWIKE’s ride vs. the 6kW electric motor – and for how long. finally someone has done it in a beautiful and entertaining way! enjoy…and be sure to answer the question at the end of the video!
TDB2015 – Day10: snow! & an executive decision
time flies when you’re having fun! today is the last day of our epic trans-european tdb2015-trip! weather hasn’t changed since yesterday. torrential rain continues and low-hanging clouds shroud all surrounding mountains. After a hearty breakfast we load our stuff into TW560 and set out to cross the arlberg pass. our optional route via lech / zürs is not an option, since weather radar images show heavy rainfall all the way to the swiss border…and beyond. TW560s interior is still very damp from yesterday’s drive – windscreen fogging is inevitable. we start the defrosters and happily munch additional 500+W just for […]
TDB2015 – Day9: entering the alps
our day starts early again. after a hearty breakfast, we check-out and are personally seen off by the owner of the guest house. as a first, today, heavy rain instead of sunshine awaits us as we get into TW560. one design drawback of a twike is the canopy which opens to the front. during rain, this exposes most of the interior, allowing it to get wet. when it rains, twike pilots are able to get into their vehicles very quickly, thus keeping the rain entering to a minimum. less ideal is our case where we have to pack the twike […]