Margaret James unplugged her Twike from an outlet in her garage, lifted the roof— the “canopy,” she called it—and told me to climb in. We were about to embark on the inaugural ride of the first Twike in Illinois.
The Twike, which stands for twin bike, is composed of a pair of recumbent bicycles inside a sleek aerodynamic pod. It’s an odd little three-wheeled hybrid of a vehicle that runs on both electric and human power. An electric motor allows the driver to keep up with traffic. Pedaling while the motor is running—optional for both driver and passenger—conserves the batteries. James climbed in beside me, pulled down the canopy, and strapped herself in. There was no steering wheel, just a tiller. "You're very brave,” she said, inspiring immediate fear.
James had test-driven a Twike several months earlier, under the guidance of Walt Breitinger, one of about 15 Twike owners—or Twike pilots, as they call themselves—in the U.S. But that was in a parking lot and on small residential roads in Valparaiso, and James hadn’t driven one since.
“I don’t remember how to operate this thing,” she said, appearing more amused than concerned. She pulled out a checklist and warned me never to press the red button between the seats. Then she pressed it. The Twike kicked on.
James gave up biking as a regular mode of transportation a few years ago, after an encounter with an aggressive motorist. She’d been weaving through idle traffic on her way home from teaching piano lessons at the Old Town School of Folk Music when a car rammed her from behind. “I was able to catch myself and not fall over,” she says, but the incident startled her enough that she began looking for safer ways to get around the city.
James owns a car, but it’s 13 years old, and she uses it primarily to get to her job in Oakbrook, where she’s the musical director for Drury Lane theater. She doesn’t plan to replace the car when it dies because she considers driving a “total waste” of both time and fossil fuel. Unless you have passengers, she says, “it just feels like such an incredibly selfish thing to do.”
So after the run-in with the motorist, James became smitten with the Twike, which she discovered on the Web. “It’s just a brilliant vehicle,” she says. “Charging up the battery fully costs less than 20 cents.” Batteries, however, cost around $5,000 and need to be replaced every five years or so. They can be fully charged in about two hours, according to James, and a computer console notifies drivers when it’s time to do so. The distance you can travel between charges depends on the type of battery, how much you pedal to maintain momentum, and whether you use the regenerative braking system. With nickel-cadmium batteries, James says, most people can expect to go about 20 miles. The newer nickel-metal hydride batteries can take drivers about 50 miles, and she’s heard rumors of a 90-mile battery in development. She thinks that, battery aside, her Twike will pay for itself in what she’ll save in gas in five years. She plans to use it for her commute to Oakhrook, and has mapped out back roads and gotten permission to recharge it at the theater.
