QikStart — Savvas Konstantinidis

Why I built it

I ride a motorcycle and I wanted to know what the rides actually look like — not the route, which a map already solves, but the quality of the ride: how smooth it was, where the stops were, what those rides cost in fuel. Nothing measured that, so I built the thing that would.

The problem

Ride logging means either fiddling with a phone at traffic lights or guessing afterwards. Most apps want an account, a cloud and a subscription, for a record of a ride that only the rider cares about.

What it does

It records a ride from the phone’s own GPS and motion sensors: distance, speed, stops and how long each one lasted, and a smoothness score for riding quality. There is fuel tracking with a cost history, and a small animated strip that leans as you ride. Manual start, automatic end, and it keeps recording with the screen off.

What it looks like

Four screens from the build on my phone. The numbers in them are a real ride, not a mock-up — this is the app I actually use.

A saved ride in QikStart: distance, moving and stopped time, average and maximum speed, and every stop with its time and duration — A saved ride — distance, moving and stopped time, speeds, and every stop with its time and duration.

The Insights tab: this month against all time, and distance by week — Insights — this month against all time, and distance by week.

Ride settings in QikStart: the automatic-end rule with its own undo window, and the audible tick that shows the tracker is running — Ride settings — the automatic-end rule with its own undo window, and the tick that shows it is recording.

The motorcycle's own details, kept in the app rather than in an account somewhere — The motorcycle’s details, kept in the app rather than in an account somewhere.

Where it is now

Built and on my phone as an Android app. It is deliberately phone-only — no account, no server, nothing uploaded. The data stays on the device, which for something that records where you ride is the only design I was willing to accept.

Who it might interest

Motorcyclists who like data and dislike subscriptions. Also anyone who wants to see what a phone’s own sensors can do when nothing is offloaded to a cloud.

Phone-only and Android — there is no web address to try. Nothing it records leaves the device.