Tiiks vs mainTrack: Daily Riding vs Quiet iOS Bookkeeping

mainTrack is a quiet, one-developer iOS ledger that has been doing the job since about 2019. Tiiks is a living bike on iOS and Android, with a catalog and a widget.

The house is quiet enough that you can hear the freehub while you roll the bike into the hallway. It is a weeknight ride, not a story. You rinse the bottle, put the computer on charge, and wait for the phone to make one small sound that means the ride landed. Some apps treat that sound as a chance to be loud. mainTrack, if you have lived with it, treats it as a note in a book that has been open on iOS since about 2019. The question is whether a quiet book is still the bike you want to live with.

There is a kind of rider who wants less product, not more. No Android because they do not own Android. No web because they do not want another tab. No community because reviews feel like noise. They want hours and distance, a component that can move between bikes, and a notification that the ride was filed. That rider is not behind the times. They are defending a workflow that already works. The comparison only gets dishonest when someone calls that workflow a living bike. It is a ledger. A good one.

Tiiks is louder in the only way we care about: the bike stays on the home screen, the part has a catalog name, and other riders’ mileage is in the room. If that sounds like clutter to you, stay where it is quiet. If it sounds like the difference between a notebook and a machine you ride, keep reading. This is not a takedown of a one-developer app. It is a map of two tempers.

Quiet bookkeeping versus daily riding

mainTrack has been iOS-only since around 2019. One developer. Strava for mileage. You can assign components across bikes, which is the feature people stay for when a wheelset or a power meter moves. Hours and distance both count. Notifications fire after rides. There is no Android client and no web app. The commercial shape is free with in-app purchases — a small store, not a companion subscription trying to become your season. It is an excellent quiet ledger. It is not trying to be a bike identity, a catalog, or a review community.

Longevity on a single platform is a kind of proof. The app did not need a launch video in 2026 to exist. It needed a developer who kept the books. That also explains the edges. If your household has an Android rider, they are outside the fence. If you wanted a widget that is the bike, or a catalog part with specs, you are asking a notebook to become a shop. It will not, and it should not have to apologize for that.

A bike that shows up after the ride

We built Tiiks for the daily shape of riding, not the archival shape. Native iOS as the primary home, Android so the other phone in the house is not a second-class citizen. Automatic Strava sync. Mileage on each component. A real parts catalog. Verified reviews with mileage attached. A home-screen widget. Service versus replace. The full history of the bike, including the parts you archived when you swapped them. Wear from the rides, not from a date you hoped you would honor.

We are not a one-person notebook, and we will not costume ourselves as one. We are enthusiasts shipping a rider product. That means the bike is supposed to be present between rides, not only at the moment of the notification. If you wanted silence and a tidy list, we may feel like more app than you asked for. If you wanted the cassette to still be the cassette tomorrow morning without opening a ledger, that extra presence is the point.

iOS-only since 2019 versus iOS and Android

Platform is not a footnote here. mainTrack’s iOS-only life is a boundary, not a phase. If everyone you ride with is on iPhone, you will never feel it. If you share bikes with someone on Android, or you are the Android, the ledger is a private language. There is no web escape hatch. The book lives where the developer put it. That is a clean, old-fashioned constraint. Respect it or leave it, but do not wait for a port that the product has not promised you.

Tiiks ships on both phones. iOS is still where we are most at home — that is the honest order — and Android is a real client, not a brochure. A pair of riders in one household can look at the same idea of a bike without one of them borrowing a laptop. We still use Strava as the ride source. The platform difference is not “we invented mileage.” It is “the other person can hold the bike too.”

A quiet ledger versus a living bike identity

mainTrack files the ride and keeps the assignment. That is bookkeeping at the correct volume. The bike does not acquire a public face. There is no catalog gravity and no review thread. You will not be tempted to browse parts. You will also not be helped by someone else’s 3,000 km on the same tyre. Quiet is a feature until you need a second opinion that is not a forum you do not trust.

We treat the bike as an identity that survives the notification. Parts mount and archive. History accumulates on the bike, not only in a note you filed at 10 p.m. The widget is the bike when the app is closed, which is most of the week. That is more surface area, and it is deliberate. Daily riding is not an archive problem. It is a presence problem. You forget the chain because the week was loud, not because you lacked a field for hours on a quiet iOS ledger.

Hours, distance, and assignment versus catalog truth

Hours plus distance plus moving a component between bikes is mainTrack’s craft. If your winter is indoor hours and your cassette commutes between frames, that craft is why the app is still here. Tiiks is more interested in what the part is. Catalog, specs, reviews with miles, then wear from the rides, then service or replace. We assign parts to a bike as a living setup, not as a floating chip you only remember when you are tidying. If assignment is the feature you would tattoo on a stem cap, stay with the ledger. If naming the part is the feature, come to the catalog.

One developer’s notebook versus a rider product

A one-developer iOS app can be more trustworthy than a loud company. It can also stay a notebook forever. That is not a flaw if a notebook is what you bought. Tiiks is a product with a catalog, reviews, a widget, and two phone platforms. We will feel less handmade. We will also still be there when you want the bike on the home screen and a review that is not your own memory. Different scales, different promises. Do not punish a quiet app for refusing to become a store. Do not punish a rider app for refusing to stay a list.

Who should stay, and who should switch

Stay on mainTrack if you are iOS-only, you like a one-developer ledger that has been open since about 2019, you need hours as well as distance, you move parts across bikes, and you want a notification — not a community, not a catalog — after the ride. Free with in-app purchases is a calmer deal than a companion subscription if you are allergic to theater. Quiet is a feature. Just do not ask the notebook to become a shop window.

Move to Tiiks if daily riding is the point: iOS and Android, Strava wear on real catalog parts, reviews with mileage, a home-screen widget, service versus replace, and a history that stays with the bike when you swap a cassette. We are not trying to out-quiet a notebook, and we are not trying to win a one-developer authenticity contest. We are trying to keep the bike in the week you actually live, including the week the other phone in the house is Android.

Questions we get

Is there an Android version of mainTrack?

No. It has been an iOS app for years, and the lack of Android and web is part of the design, not a missing checkbox on a launch list someone forgot to tick. If you need Android, you are already outside that product, and no amount of affection for a quiet ledger will put it on the other phone. Tiiks is the comparison you came for in that case. If you do not need Android, do not switch only because a blog post mentioned a second store listing.

Is mainTrack still worth using in 2026?

Yes, if what you wanted was a quiet ledger. Age in this case is a compliment, not a warning label. The app has been assigning parts across bikes and taking Strava rides since around 2019, which is longer than most launch-week trackers survive. It becomes the wrong tool when you want a catalog, verified reviews with mileage, a widget that is the bike, or a second platform. Worth using and worth switching are different sentences. Plenty of good software is not your software.

Does Tiiks notify you after every ride?

The ride lands through Strava, the parts move, and the widget is there without opening the app. We are not trying to win a notification contest with a one-developer ledger that already does that job cleanly. If a ping is the only feature you love, mainTrack already has it. If you wanted the ping to point at a named part with a history, that is the rest of our product.

If the hallway is quiet and the bike still needs a life beyond a filed note, you already heard the difference. Keep mainTrack if the notebook is the whole job and iOS is the whole house. Keep the notification if a ping is enough. Track this bike in Tiiks and let the next evening ride update the parts you actually used, so the chain is still present when the house is loud again tomorrow.