TWIKE 560's adventures

How time flies – it’s already been 2 years since I installed my 51Ah 17.7kWh LiNiCoAlO2-Cell-based battery pack. For better battery health and less ageing my daily charge is only to 3.8V cell charge, I never discharge below 3.3V and balance the cell packs from time to time. As my daily commute is only around […]

After my first drive across Switzerland after TW560’s rebuild following a the destruction of TW560 in an accident, a visit to the Gran Sasso and enjoying a weekend in the Graubünden Alps, it’s time to drive back home. This entry isn’t too much about TW560 and more about the stunning beauty of the country I […]

Sleeping at 1600m is always relaxing – fresh air, cow bells in the distance and crickets all merge into the typical Swiss soundscape I find deeply relaxing. (Maybe the bottle or two of very drinkable Rhine valley reds we had the evening before also helped a little 😉 ) Today, whilst my daughter is competing […]

Every time when changing something related to batteries, many other parameters potentially change at the same time: Chemistry, response to load, max/min voltages and discharge curves, etc. In a way, it feels like being a novice TWIKE pilot again – you really don’t know how your battery will react and – in consequence – how […]

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 […]

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 […]

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: […]

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 […]

our trip today is filed under TDM2014 *and* one-day-trip. we start in trieste and circumvent the istrian pensinsula and arrive back in triest. we have three learnings for today. 1. croatia/istria is extremely nice; there will be another TDM/TDI(stria) 2. the tour we did today is one of the most diverse you can have with […]

since the blog entry for the first part of the day was getting quite long, i’ve added this second entry for reading convenience. we take up the action after having very nice lunch at the silwängi alp hut and are on our way down to the schönisei valley. arriving at schönisei, tw560’s battery is fully […]

i’m very happy to live in switzerland…and humbled by the beauty of this country. that said, as a foreigner, i might be more susceptible to switzerland’s culture and beauty than most locals. whilst risking to repeat myself – if you’ve not yet been to switzerland… you absolutely have to make plans to visit! jc and […]

Imagine: A saturday – my family fully booked with horse riding and shooting, weather forcast superb for all of switzerland… I decide to leave bright and early to drive wherever TW560 takes me. although i started out as random as possible, arriving in chur gave me just a limited choice of places to go. therefore, […]

TWIKE swiss alps challenge 2012 – announced here on this site’s sidebar for some time, was a brainwave i had during my last longer TWIKE trip to southern spain this year. initially, i was planning to test if it was possible to cross the swiss alps with 6.5kWh worth of energy and then see how […]

i’m visiting my family whilst they are on vacation in wildhaus – we can see the churfirsten mountain range from our chalet – the view looks similar to the photo above. during the weekend one of my daughters asked if they looked the same from behind and i said … more or less, how about […]

4feb12 the twike-club had one of its three annual meetings in churwalden, switzerland. traditionally, at this churwalden meeting we gather to have some fun during the day, build up some hunger and then converge onto a converted stable in a 400 yr old building where we eat a fondue, a typical swiss dish in a very rustical […]