TWIKE 560's adventures

Two decades, 280,000+km – countless hours of driving bliss and a persistent attribute of my life – Thank you, TW560! Built in Switzerland mid-2000 by the nascent TWIKE AG, it was put into service one month before my eldest daughter was born. My wife and I had just returned from 3+ years of living abroad […]

Today’s entry will be a short one – my own family has already left and I’m going to spend some last hours with my extended family – doing what we do best: chatting, eating and drinking. For lunch we chose another very typical restaurant where I got a very last fix for my year-long craving: […]

There is not much to write about after all the other years I’ve written about traveling to Styria. It’s been 16 years now that I and my family have been attending a family gathering of my Austrian family in Styria. Usually this is a 5-day stay in southern Austria. We drink lots of wine, eat […]

Our prologue’s last day has begun. This evening, we will be arriving at the winery we’ve been going to for the last 15 years. We will be meeting with our kids who have texted us that they were on their way. For them it will be a 850km road trip from Switzerland. For us the […]

Our day starts lazily after another hearty Austrian Breakfast. The only plan we have for today is to visit Klagenfurt – I’ve never been myself and looking forward to it. The weather stays cloudy, grey and rather cold. A TWIKE comes with little options to heat the cabin – we therefore add another layer to […]

At last: our day starts with a blue sky, warm temperatures and the sun fighting its way through the last remainders of fog in the valley. Our destination for today is Villach – getting there will see us leave the northern Italian Dolomites region and crossing into southern Austria – both regions are, given nice […]

Today is our official first day off – we wake up to a grey day with us not really being able to fully take advantage of our awesome suite-style room with huge balcony so obviously designed for the lazy consumption of a sunny day! After a hearty Austrian-style breakfast my wife and I start our […]

Finally, the day has come for TDST2020! My wife and I will be traveling to Southern Styria together by TWIKE. We will be taking our time, whilst our children will follow a week later by car and meet up with us at one of our favourite Buschenschanks close to where we stay every year. Packing […]

A world record with a TWIKE? 2000km on one charge…with a 25+ year old electric vehicle? Wishful thinking or validation of a decades-old vehicle concept? Thomas Bechtiger from Bemoto in Zurich has been our trusted TWIKE repair shop from the very beginning and thought that this would be feasible. He wanted to just load as […]

As I got up early morning, I suddenly felt different about what I should be doing the next few days: I wanted to drive home. No hardcore TWIKEing. Direction home, nevertheless. Starting my trip at 7am today, I am, yet again, greeted by a very nice day, promising to be hot and sunny. I cross […]

Our stay in Lucca was much too short. Today’s drive will take us to Massa Marina, just 80km from Lucca. My family will enjoy the town for another few hours whilst I start bright and early. My plan for today is to drive from the coast inland up some hills and back to the sea […]

Time has flown by in Terni & Rome. We’ve had a great time as a family with all our friends and we’re very grateful for their friendship. Today I will drive to Lucca on my own – my family wants to spend less time on the road – rather a long and relaxing lunch at […]

After arriving in Terni, we’re ready for a week of time-off, Italian-style! We live with our friends whilst our kids live distributed across town with their grown-up children or stay with the extended family. Most of our days consist of sitting at long tables and eating fabulous food or visiting other parts of the family […]

After our two days with our friends, it’s time for us as a family to spend some time at the sea on our own. We’re all looking forward to 3 days in Lido di Dante – it’s a trip down memory lane: as a young family we came here a few times when the kids […]

A new TWIKE adventure! Post-Lockdown1 relaxation of travel restrictions to Italy meant that we – at short notice – arranged to visit various of our Italian friends and stay a few days at the sea, both on the Adriatic and Tyrrheanean side of the Italian peninsula. The first two days will see me driving on […]

As always, the time until a major trip seems endless until…the trip is just 2 weeks away and the agenda is still full with calls and meetings and weekends are chock-full with other stuff. Equally important is balancing a pack before setting out on 3 weeks of full-cycle discharges during long-distance daily trips. Thanks to […]

At the end of 2019, I look back at a very nice and fun-packed year with my favourite of all vehicles: TWIKE 560. 2019 was a very busy year. It saw me travelling around 80% and being away for weeks at a time. Most notable was November where I enjoyed full two weeks in warm […]

After a gloriously refreshing night of undisturbed sleep thanks to super-fresh air and no noise, I wake super-refreshed even after a boozy night smoking multiple cigars.   Seb and I meet downstairs for breakfast with fresh Zopf and home-made jam and honey which we eat enjoying the same incredible view on his balcony. Life could […]

Given that I slept in a communal space, it was surprising that I woke up refreshed when the rays of the early morning sun filtered into the room. Grabbing my overnight bag I head upstairs to the upper desk passing still-closed bars to get a glimpse of what’s going on around the ferry and find […]

My last day in Spain has come. I have to get to Barcelona early, as I need to get a full charge to be able to get to Seb’s on one charge. Seb is a long-time friend and reader of this blog who lives in lower Valais. There are only a few commercial charging options […]

After not having slept well due to excessive noise levels outside of the hotel, I get up early and look out of my room to check if TW560 is still there. Two things to report … Good news: it’s still there. Bad news: something else TW560-related appeared overnight: a huge new oil leak. I really […]

Balancing batteries is an important part of maintaining pack health. Especially with a battery pack that doesn’t have an active cell-level BMS monitoring every cell. TWIKE 560 currently has three 100-cell stacks which all would need an own balancing connection – a BMS would be adding weight, considerable amounts of cabling and complexity to the […]

It’s been a while since I’ve mentioned anything about the development of next-gen TWIKE’s. My TWIKE is a third-generation TWIKE that went into production over 27 years ago and is still in production today! The first version of TWIKE’s were a human powered recumbent bike for two people, capable of sustaining 50 km/h for 50km. […]

After a very nice evening with my friends in Brescia, it’s time to head back home. Instead of choosing another selection of small road across the Alps, for today I chose to try a recently-built stretch of Autostrada that will take me to Milan quicker and with less traffic…and with a much better road surface. […]

Today’s trip to Brescia is going to be a full mix of landscapes – saying goodbye to the sea, crossing the Apennines and onward across the Pianura. For this I get up very early as I’ve planned to drive along some very small and interesting single-lane roads, exploring rural Italy away from any main roads. […]