Tiiks vs Geer: A Bike You Live With vs a Homescreen Shortcut

Geer is a privacy-first EU PWA you install to the homescreen — not in the App Store or Play Store — with Strava sync, intervals, and a joke-heavy site. Here is how that shortcut compares to a native app with a catalog and a widget.

Geer is not in the App Store. It is not on Google Play. You go to geer.bike, install the page to the homescreen, and treat a browser app like a program. That is a progressive web app. For some riders that is the whole appeal: no store account, no native binary, a shortcut next to the weather. For others it is the whole limit: no native widget, no store presence, a product that lives where Safari or Chrome lets it live. The install step feels like an app. The daily use still has a browser’s boundaries.

Once installed, Geer does the maintenance-PWA job. It syncs Strava, you add components, it suggests intervals, and it can alert you by push and by email. It is built to make swapping a component between bikes easy. It distinguishes indoor and outdoor ride types. It keeps a full history. The site’s voice is joke-heavy. The commercial claims are specific: privacy-first, EU-based, user-funded, no investors — that is how they describe themselves — with a free tier of two bikes and five components, and Pro they price at about €1.67 per month on a yearly plan, which they say is cheaper than an inner tube.

They also ship a savings calculator: ride-to-failure versus servicing on time. That is a browser product with a point of view. What it is not: a native iOS or Android app, a home-screen widget in the OS sense, a real parts catalog, or verified rider reviews that carry mileage. A shortcut can be excellent at alerts and still be a website you pinned.

What Geer actually is

Geer is a PWA at geer.bike. You install it to the homescreen. Strava sync feeds mileage. You add components and accept suggested intervals. Push and email alerts are how it reaches you when a part is due. Indoor versus outdoor ride types acknowledge that a trainer hour is not the same as a road hour, which matters if you sit on a turbo all winter and still want the chain counted. Easy swaps between bikes are for people who move hardware. Full history is the log of that life.

The rest of the public story is positioning. Privacy-first, EU-based, user-funded, no investors: they say this, and it matches a PWA that never had to pass a store. The free cap — two bikes, five components — and the Pro price they advertise as roughly €1.67 a month on yearly billing are how they fund it. The savings calculator is how they argue for on-time service. Joke-heavy marketing is the tone. None of that installs a native widget or fills a catalog of real models with verified mileage reviews.

A bike you live with, not a shortcut

Tiiks is a native app on iOS and Android. You download it from a store, not from a URL you hope the browser will keep. Automatic Strava sync writes per-component mileage. The parts catalog is a library of real models and specs. Verified rider reviews include real mileage. Service versus replace sits on a full bike history. The bike is an object the phone already knows how to host, not a tab you pinned so you would not lose the site.

The home-screen widget is a native widget, not the PWA icon you already tapped to install Geer. That distinction is easy to blur in conversation and expensive in daily use. An icon that opens a website is a shortcut. A widget that shows part status without opening anything is a status surface. We built Tiiks as the second thing, on a bike you keep living with.

A PWA on the homescreen versus a native app

A PWA is a real product category. You avoid store review, you update without waiting for an app binary, and you can keep a privacy story that never involved Apple or Google as a distributor. Geer’s absence from both stores is consistent with that choice, and with the user-funded, no-investors story they tell. The cost is the platform’s. Background behavior, widgets, and OS integrations are whatever the browser and the home-screen install allow, which is less than a native app on either phone.

A native Tiiks install is the other contract. You are in the App Store or on Play. You get a real iOS and Android client, automatic Strava sync, and a widget the OS treats as a widget. If your reason for Geer is “I do not want a store,” stop there — that reason is coherent. If your reason was “I want this to feel like the other apps on my phone,” a pinned site will keep reminding you that it is a pinned site.

Suggested intervals versus a real parts catalog

Geer lets you add components and then suggests intervals. That is a complete loop for a generic part: name it, accept a suggestion, get an alert. It is not a catalog identity. Two chains can share a suggestion and still be different models with different specs. The PWA does not become a parts library because the interval was reasonable. Five components on the free tier will also force you to choose which generic names are worth a slot.

Tiiks assigns a catalog model. Specs come with the part. Verified rider reviews come with mileage. Suggested intervals without a catalog are a schedule. A catalog without your rides would be a brochure. The useful product is both: your automatic Strava mileage on a part that is a known object. If you are happy naming components yourself and trusting a suggestion, Geer’s loop is enough. If you want the object to be a real model, you want the catalog.

A savings calculator versus verified rider reviews

Geer’s savings calculator compares riding a part to failure with servicing it on time. It is a teaching tool and a sales tool, and the joke-heavy site will not let you miss it. What it cannot tell you is how far a specific model lasted for riders who recorded real mileage. A calculator argues a habit. Verified rider reviews argue from other people’s distance on a catalog part. If you want motivation to service on time, the calculator is on-message. If you want evidence about the part on your bike, you want reviews with mileage, which Geer does not have.

Browser alerts versus a native widget

Push and email alerts are how a PWA shouts. They work when the browser and the OS still deliver them, and email works even when push is flaky. That is a fair design for a site you installed. It is not a home-screen widget that shows chain and tyre status while you never open the shortcut. Geer has no native widget. Tiiks does. If you already live in email, Geer’s alert path may be the one you will honor. If you want the bike on the home screen as status, not as an icon that launches a website, you want the native widget.

When a privacy-first PWA is the point

Geer fits if you want a browser app, you believe their privacy-first and user-funded story, you are fine with a product that is not in the stores, and two bikes with five components is enough on the free side — or you accept the Pro price they advertise as about €1.67 a month yearly. Indoor and outdoor types, easy swaps, and a full history are the maintenance features you will actually use. The jokes are the tone you will live with. If avoiding the stores is the requirement, this is one of the few maintenance products that treats that as the design, not as a gap.

It is the wrong shape if you want a native iOS or Android app, a real parts catalog, verified reviews with mileage, or a native home-screen widget. A shortcut can be loyal and well-funded by users and still not be a bike you live with on the phone’s own terms. The savings calculator can still be right about on-time service. It cannot stand in for reviews with mileage or for a widget that never opens the site.

Questions we get

Is Geer in the App Store or on Google Play?

No. Geer is a PWA at geer.bike. You install it to the homescreen. That is a deliberate distribution choice, not a missing link. Tiiks is a native app in the App Store and on Google Play. If store presence is a requirement, the comparison is already decided.

What does Geer include for free?

They state a free tier of two bikes and five components, and a Pro plan at about €1.67 per month when billed yearly, which they compare to the price of an inner tube. Treat those figures as their current public claim and re-check geer.bike before you budget. Tiiks’ own plans are separate; this article does not invent them.

Does Geer have a parts catalog or a native widget?

No. Geer has Strava sync, components you add, suggested intervals, push and email alerts, swaps, indoor and outdoor types, and a full history. It does not have a real parts catalog, verified rider reviews with mileage, or a native home-screen widget. The savings calculator and the joke-heavy marketing are not substitutes for those.

If you want a native app you live with — catalog, reviews, per-component mileage, service versus replace, full history, and a widget on iOS or Android — that is the job Tiiks is built for.