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 […]
Repairs: replacing the charging cable signaling pigtail
during the last few weeks, TW560’s been behaving strangely. whilst driving – and more annoyingly – at red lights, my TWIKE started to claim that it was ready for charging, although i was either driving or clearly not wanting to charge, since i was standing at a red light. it’s a really annoying and potentially dangerous problem. unlike newer ev’s, TWIKEs come with a non-removable charging cable which directly connects to the inverter. detection of drive-readiness is achieved through a dummy socket in the vehicle’s interior. my current problem was a bad contact or broken cable, since the problem was […]