Tiiks vs BikeHub: Parts That Mean Something vs Swap Accounting

BikeHub is a Hungarian indie Android app for riders who install, remove, and move parts between bikes — and then back-calculate the miles. Here is how swap accounting compares to a catalog identity.

Some riders keep one groupset and two frames. The cassette comes off the winter bike in March, the wheelset moves to the race bike in May, and the same brake calipers have lived on three bikes if you count the spare. If that is how you actually run a fleet, a simple “this bike has a chain” log lies to you. The part left. The miles did not stay behind on the old frame unless something recorded the move. A notebook that only knows bikes, not transfers, will age the wrong machine and retire the wrong cassette.

BikeHub is built for that habit. On Google Play it is com.awolity.bikehub, a small Hungarian indie app by Vokó Dániel János, with a little over a thousand downloads. You register an install or a removal — including in the past — and the app back-calculates mileage. It also tracks operating time, not only distance. Service intervals and notifications sit on top. You can attach photos. The product is an accounting of swaps.

That is a real problem and a real solution. It is also a different problem from “what is this part, and what do other riders know about it.” A ledger can be precise about when a component changed bikes and still be silent about whether that component is a named model in a catalog, or how far verified riders have taken that model. If you swap often, start with BikeHub’s job. If you live with one bike and want identity, start with the other job.

What BikeHub is designed around

The center of BikeHub is the install and remove event. You tell the app that a part went onto a bike on a date, or came off on a date, including dates that have already passed. Mileage from Strava and operating time are then allocated across those intervals. That back-calculation is the feature people who move wheels and groupsets actually need. Without it, every swap resets the story or leaves miles stuck on the wrong bike. Entering a past date is not a correction on the margins. It is the normal way this diary gets written, because the swap happened on a Tuesday and the phone came out on Sunday.

Around that, BikeHub gives you service intervals, notifications, and photos of the part or the job. For a rider who treats components as inventory that travels, photos are a practical memory: which rotor was on which wheel, which caliper had the new pads. The app is not trying to be a storefront or a review site. It is trying to keep the books when the hardware will not sit still.

Identity of a part, not a ledger of swaps

Tiiks treats a component as something with a catalog identity. You fit a real model from a parts catalog, mileage from automatic Strava sync accumulates on that component, and the bike keeps a full history of service versus replace. Verified rider reviews include real mileage, so the identity is not only a name you typed. It is a model other people have ridden. When you look at the bike next month, you are not reconstructing which unlabeled cassette traveled where. You are looking at the part that is fitted now, with its own count and its own reviews.

That model is native on iOS and Android, with a home-screen widget for status. It is built for living with the bike you ride, not for being the general ledger of a parts drawer. You can still replace a part and keep history. The unit of meaning is the component as a catalog object on a bike, not the transfer slip between two bikes.

Back-calculated installs versus a catalog model

BikeHub’s back-calculation is the honest way to handle a late diary. You remember in June that the cassette moved in April; you enter the past remove and install; the miles redistribute. For swap-heavy riders that is the feature that makes the rest of the app worth opening. A catalog cannot replace that workflow if moving hardware is the weekly reality. Operating time travels with the part in the same way: the hours it spent under load are not stranded on the frame you pulled it off.

A catalog answers a different question: what is the thing you just bolted on. In Tiiks the part is a model with specs, not only a row that changed bikes. When you replace it, you are not only closing an interval. You are closing the life of a named part and opening another. If you rarely swap across frames, back-calculation is power you will not use. If you swap constantly, a catalog without that ledger will feel like it is talking about the wrong object.

Operating time and Strava miles versus reviews with real mileage

BikeHub counts Strava mileage and operating time. Time matters for parts that sit under load without covering ground — a turbo session, a trainer, a long climb in a low gear that eats a chain without looking like much on the road map. Pairing distance and time is a serious way to think about wear when your riding is not all outdoor kilometers.

Tiiks puts automatic Strava sync onto each component and then adds a second kind of mileage: verified rider reviews that include how far those riders actually got on the same kind of part. That is not your operating-time clock. It is other people’s distance on a catalog model. One number tells you how long your part has been working. The other tells you whether the model itself tends to die early. You may want both. BikeHub is built for the first. Tiiks is built for the second, on top of your own per-component count.

Photos of what you pulled versus knowing what it is

A photo of a cassette on a workstand is a good record of a swap. It will not tell the next owner of that wheel what the cassette is, what it weighs, or how far riders typically take it. BikeHub’s photos serve the accountant: proof of what moved. Tiiks’ catalog and reviews serve the rider who wants the part to remain a known object after the photo is forgotten. If your problem is “which of these three identical-looking wheels has the fresh bearings,” take the photo. If your problem is “is this the cassette I think it is, and what do reviews say at my mileage,” take the catalog.

Built for swapping versus built for living with the bike

Read BikeHub as a tool for people who treat parts as inventory. The happy path is install, remove, reassign, notify. Read Tiiks as a tool for people who treat a bike as a machine they live with: one setup, mileage landing on each slot, a widget on the home screen, a decision to service or replace, a history that stays with the bike. Neither description is an insult. A swap accountant that tried to be a catalog would be worse at the books. A catalog app that tried to be a general ledger for a traveling groupset would be worse at identity.

When you actually move parts between frames

Choose BikeHub if you regularly move wheels, groups, or brakes between bikes, you are on Android, and the feature you will use every month is “I forgot to log the swap, so I will enter it last month and let the miles catch up.” The small indie scope is a feature here: the app is aimed at that job, not at becoming a store. Photos of what you pulled off are part of that job. A thousand downloads on Play is enough to take the ledger seriously and not enough to pretend it is a catalog platform.

Choose a catalog-first app if the part should still mean something when it is not in transit — specs, reviews with mileage, service versus replace, history on the bike you actually ride, and a widget you glance at. If you own two bikes and almost never share parts, BikeHub’s accounting is overhead. If you share parts every season, Tiiks will feel like it is missing the transfer slip. Be honest about how often the hardware actually moves. A swap app for a bike that never swaps is ceremony. A catalog app for a traveling groupset is a diary with the wrong plot.

Questions we get

Is BikeHub made for people who swap parts between bikes?

Yes. The install and remove flow, including past dates and back-calculated mileage, is the point of the product. Photos and service notifications sit on that ledger. If you do not move parts between bikes, you are paying for a workflow you will not run.

Does BikeHub have a parts catalog?

No. BikeHub accounts for swaps. It does not give a part a catalog identity with specs and verified rider reviews. You can still name things carefully and photograph them. That is still accounting, not a catalog.

BikeHub is a small Android app. Does that matter?

It tells you the scope. BikeHub is a Hungarian indie listing on Google Play with around a thousand downloads. That is enough to take the swap features seriously and not enough to treat it as a platform you will find on iPhone. Tiiks is native on iOS and Android with a catalog, reviews, widget, and full bike history.

If you want the part to stay a named object with mileage and reviews — not only a row that moved — that is the job Tiiks is built for.