Meeting Derek And His Beta

Ron 0:02

On the Peace Love Moto podcast, I say it over and over and over again. But the great pleasure I have had with have hosting this podcast for the last three years is meeting people. Yeah, I'm a social butterfly. Yeah, that's for sure. Just ask my wife. But I especially love to meet someone who I feel like we're on the same page. And sometimes you can find that out through Instagram. And that's how we I have met this gentleman today through Instagram. And uh Derek Hildreth is with me from Montana, my neighbor to the north. And uh he has got a lot to tell us about uh what he does in the motorcycling world. But um I was uh Derek and I have been visiting for a few minutes before we have started recording, and I have never interviewed anyone who is a single track writer. So Derek is my first, and also Derek has invented something that's made available to you, the listeners, anywhere around the world, and it is very, very cool. And we're gonna get to that too. But Derek, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being on.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

Ron, this is awesome. Thank you.

Ron 1:10

Yeah, hey man, so this is typically what I ask everybody from the very beginning. So what do you ride?

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Ooh, I ride a uh 2016 Beta X Trainer 300 two-stroke. Yeah, yeah. And that's that that's that single track riding that you're talking about there.

Ron 1:29

Yep. Two stroke. So so uh t tell me about that. How long how long have you been riding bikes like that?

The Carburetor Lesson And DIY Pride

SPEAKER_02 1:36

Oh man, my my whole life I've been riding bikes. Uh we had a an uh we have a family cabin uh here in Montana that now when I grew up, it was all about bikes. If it had an engine, I was all about it. So it was four-wheelers and dirt bikes and you know, whatever we could get out and get onto those uh forest service roads. And I kind of remember like some of my earlier bikes. I had a little Kawasaki 80 that just threw spark plugs like nobody's business. We always had to carry like several of them. And uh we had a my my grandfather bought my grandma one of those Yamaha fat cats, if you remember those things with the big old wheels on it. Yes, yeah, yeah. So, like, you know, I I had driven around one of those things that was awesome. You know, when I was like, I I couldn't even touch the ground on one of those, you know. And and uh my my grandfather, he had a uh a Yamaha TT350. Um, I think it was in the '87. It was kind of one of those first years that they introduced the mono shock. And um, boy, I just remember loving that. And uh, I think I was that was kind of an official like first bike that I actually learned on. And then it sat in the it sat in the garage for I don't know, 10, 20 years or something like that. And then I got inherited it. So my grandfather uh, you know, let me buy it from him for a buck or something. I don't know, just just the title exchange, right? So I had that, and that's kind of what re-ignited all of this passion for me is like uh, you know, it wasn't running, right? Um, after being stuck in the garage for so long, the carburetor, you know, the it ended up being the carb, of course, right? So like old fuel just completely got uh, I mean, when I took that carb out, it looked like sawdust was shoved into it, like it was awful. And so it wasn't getting any fuel. And that was kind of a, I don't know, it it feels like a moment. It feels like uh for me, it was like, how do I how do I it when I got that figured out? It was like, oh my gosh, I can do this. Like I can work on my own bike and I can work on my own machines, and it felt so good. It felt like I had so much pride and joy in caring for my own machines that it was I I just it was just like, you know, I gotta figure out how do I I gotta keep track of this, right? Like I gotta start writing it down. So that's exactly what I did. I started writing it down on a notepad. And then uh actually truth be told, I I started writing it down on uh like Google Keep, which is like a notes app on your phone, right? And uh and after a while, it just became like this mile-long scroll to find anything in there. And I thought, uh, there's gotta be a better way. I reached, you know, I did a quick search on Google, found a couple of apps, but they weren't great, right? Like they were like there was always something missing. It was only for Android, it was only for iOS, it was uh it was only uh it wasn't cloud-based, right? Like if I entered in all my data and I uninstalled the app, poof, my data's gone, right? Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, so like I was like, you know what? I've got 20 years of software engineering experience. What, why, why not try this myself? I've never developed an app, but I'm gonna try it, you know. So, uh, anyways, so that's I think that's kind of where my story comes in. You asked me a simple question about what I ride, and I gave you a long, long history lesson there.

Why Build A Maintenance App

Ron 5:23

Well, that's that's a really, really great segue to a couple of questions. I've been scribbling notes here as we've been talking, but for one thing, for one thing, one of the things that you mentioned is the the value of doing your own work. And I I talked about this a few times on the podcast, maybe not enough, but in one of the episodes, I talked, I'm pretty sure, I talked about a book called uh shop class at Soulcraft. And what attracted me to the book to that book, I I I bought it at an airport. I was flying somewhere, and in a bookstore, it showed uh an old BMW airhead in a garage, and it's called shop class at soulcraft class. Oh, I can't spot it. Let me try this again. So shop class at Soulcraft. And the argument there was that when high schools started replacing shop class with computer class, that it took something extremely, extremely valuable away from a student's or a child's experience, life experience, because they didn't have their hands on something anymore. They weren't getting dirty and they weren't looking to solve problems and looking to observe amazing engineering that goes into these things. Instead, you're you're working in this virtual world with a keyboard, a screen, and that's pretty much it. You know, so um to me, it seems like that you grasp really, really early on the I don't know what the right word would be for it, the joy or the satisfaction or the zen or whatever of working with your hands, right?

Shop Class, Zen, And Hands-On Joy

SPEAKER_02 7:10

I'm like, I like zen, you know, like that is and and that's a hundred percent, you know, that's that's where I'm coming from, right? Like I'm I'm a software engineer, right? So it's like I am on the keyboard uh you know all day. I'm in my little world on this little 27-inch monitor, you know. And uh and when I get out in the shop and I get some shop time in, it's just it is then it is uh it's like I love looking at all the little moving pieces, I love seeing how they interact together, you know, like the the real mechanical engineering of it. It's just it's an interesting, uh yeah. Anyway, it's it's a it's a really cool world. I I really enjoy it.

Ron 7:49

Well, and then getting into your app, that's what I love too, is how you've created this app out of a real need that you had. Because you get one bike is one thing, then you get multiple bikes, and then you're doing your own maintenance and things, and especially the kind of riding that you do, where yeah, you got to take care of these machines that you dearly love. If you don't take care of them, then they're gonna find they're gonna let you know really fast in the middle of nowhere that they're not happy with you not taking care of it. So, so yeah, kind of dive more back into what you did what you discovered that there was a need for, and you filled the need, right?

The Real-World Need On Single Track

Voice Logging, Reminders, And Offline Use

SPEAKER_02 8:32

Yeah, it was just a need for be like you said, like you know, just being able to track um a single machine is enough, you know, like there's a lot that goes on with uh you know some of these these enduro bikes and enduro racing and and uh us uh I love the phrase uh dirt muppets. Um it's it's a very loving word. I I I I mean it in the highest respect, but it's uh yeah, like us dirt muppets are out there, you know, just tearing ourselves our bodies, just just uh, you know, uh just for the joy of being out there and and pushing ourselves to our limits and and uh you know seeing what we can accomplish. And we're watching these hard enduro guys out there, uh I can do it name drop uh Graham Jarvis, you know, or Billy Boltz, and and we're watching these guys just you know going through these massive boulder fields and doing all these crazy things that we would never think about doing, but uh we go out and try to emulate that a little bit. And uh but yeah, so that I mean the need is just we don't want to be like stranded out in the middle of nowhere, like you've kind of mentioned, right? We could get you know 20, 30 miles in the backcountry, and you know, that'd be a terrible time for uh oh, that actually happened to me. Uh my clutch plate, uh my clutch plate started going out, and we were like you know, 20 miles in and we were in a valley, right? Like we were we had to go back up the hills to get back to the truck and stuff. So, and we were thick in the trees, and you know, what a time to have that go out. And uh, and so we got, you know, worry about your clutch plates, worry about your oils, uh, your your uh clutch oil and your brake fluids and your uh you know your your your pre-mix and you got your trans fluids, you got your uh your brake pads and chain and uh you know the drive line and all of these things that you know they they can and do fail in in a harsh environment. So uh it's a lot to track and it's a lot to keep track of. And you know, you find yourself kind of saying, when was the last time I changed my fork oil, like on my suspension, you know? Um and so this app really helps you do that. Uh just as you're in shop, as you're in the shop, you get that shop time in when you're when I know all and I'm finished. Uh you know, I I open the app and I just I have a cool like feature in there, a little AI feature that I just speak to it and I say you know something like, Hey, today I today I uh I changed the fork oil in the X trainer. Um I went with uh you know this weight of oil uh from this manufacturer, and I put in you know 500 mil uh cc's of of fluid. Um and I hit done and it automatically creates that service entry for me. Um and then I I I I move on. And now I know where I'm at. And uh the other the other one, if I may, if I can you continue kind of rambling here, is like reminders. Uh so say you are out on the trail, and that was something that that was another kind of uh uh spark uh for for me when when I started developing the app was my my friends, they were always doing kind of trail side maintenance, right? Like we always had that one guy in the parking lot that was trying to fix his his stuff in the parking lot, right?

Ron 12:08

Like I remember opening up you guys are in the saddle, saying let's go, let's go, let's go.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

Yeah, exactly, exactly. We're all dressed up, you know, we got all of our gear on and we're all ready to go. And and uh, you know, we we I I remember we we kind of joked around with with uh with him a little bit. We opened up his air, his air, uh air filter, and it was black as black. He it looked like he'd never changed it ever. And so, anyways, my my point being is that when we're out on the trail, um we want to be able to say, like, uh oh, I you know, like I I uh I just noticed this, like my clutch slipped a little bit today. Um, you know, so then I can write there, and it it it's offline, so it supports offline mode, and so you can do everything offline, but uh, you know, sit there, you can put it in there and say, uh check check clutch plates when I get back or check uh you know, whatever, right? Check uh re redo the uh refill the clutch oil, uh the hydraulic fluid. Um and then right there, you can basically kind of I I want to segue into like the this mindfulness piece of it, right? Because then you could be mindful while you're on the trail. You this moment that you had, uh, you could continue to like think about it. And it's just kind of as always in the back of your head while you're while you're riding and you're trying to have fun with your buddies, or you're trying to have that that flow state, and it's always in the back of your mind, like kind of nagging at you. And so like this allows you to just note it, jot it down, put take that memory, put it somewhere else, commit it to the app, yeah, and then go ride again and and not think about it until you're back at home and the reminder pops up and says, Hey, go check this out before your next ride.

Mindfulness On The Trail

Ron 13:59

Oh, that's that that's beautiful. I think it was two weeks ago in an episode of the podcast where I talked about having something nagging in the back of your mind. Like I think I was using the analogy real life from my own work of I having a problem that I could not get resolved. And then I leave on vacation, and for the next 400 miles down the road, it's in the back of my mind thinking, oh, what is the what is it, what is it, what is it, you know? And then you have this aha moment when you finally settle down that, oh yeah, here's what it is. But but I love where you're going with this because you're absolutely right. I mean, there's a especially with the kind of bikes that you're riding and the type of riding that you do, and the importance of really keeping a close eye on that machine, you're bound to forget something, unless it's and I'll tell you, my friend, as you get older, you're gonna be forgetting a lot.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Because that's that's where I'm at these days. But you oh no, it gets worse. It's a lot worse. I forget everything all the time.

Ron 15:04

Well, you're gonna find yourself in the nursing home soon enough. Believe me, I feel like I'm nearly there. But you're right, though. You're right. It it does lend itself, it lends itself really, really well to mindfulness because the whole idea behind mindfulness, and I'm no expert at all. I try to, we practiced it at IBM, that's where I learned it through the corporate deal where we had, you know, this focus times and things like that. But it was about the past is the past, drop it, drop what's in the past. The future isn't here yet. Don't even think about that, but be breathe and know that you're breathing, that whole thing, too. But but you and I know that when we're out on the road, whether you're between Reno and Las Vegas in the middle of nowhere in the desert, or you're up in the woods or somewhere on a single track bike like yours, you don't want to have to worry about did I do this before I left? You know, and that again, uh just another plug for what you're doing. Let me ask you this. Other people, like, do they just literally just take notes? Are they carrying, are they carrying a pen and a uh a grid sheet of paper and writing down all this stuff with course getting no reminders from that at all?

How Riders Track Maintenance Today

Service Records As Selling Power

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Right, yeah. No, that's what I found. I found that uh, you know, I have asked a lot of communities, uh lot of forums, like what do you do to to maintain and track maintenance on your bike? And uh, you know, some people are just flat out, I don't, right? Like I just, if it breaks, then I go fix it, you know. Um, and then there's folks that are are in the pen and paper camp, uh, that they just like to write their services on a piece of paper um and you know, fold it up and throw it in a Ziploc bag, and maybe they keep it with their bike or they keep it in their writing gear. Um, and uh, you know, they they pull that out every every time they do something uh with their bike. Um and they got the folks that are creating Excel spreadsheets and trying to track it in Excel. Um and uh, you know, then we got the folks that uh try to do some apps, right? Like I like myself, like I tried to find an app that was gonna help me out with it, but uh when that didn't work out, I went to a digital uh like digital notebooks. So we do have that whole kind of spectrum of people and and how they maintain their bikes. And you know, I think uh I I I want to be uh pol uh I don't know whether oh boy, uh yeah, I I want to be like kind of polite about it, but I want to say like if the system is working for you, that's what's kind of important, right? Like keep doing that system, but um I I think that you know, like my my uh my app uh lookover, uh I think that it uh really can help with all of that stuff. Um and you know, it's available to you for free uh for for one machine, and you know give it a try.

Ron 18:16

We're most definitely, and I'm gonna repeat it now too. It's it's lookover, just like it sounds, lookover.app, and that's the website as well, right? And that's the name of the is name of the maintenance app. Here's one other angle I want to just kind of throw out as a plug. Um my wife and I, we keep up with the maintenance on our cars, for example, right? And I do on my motorcycle too, motorcycles. Um and I don't sell motorcycles very often, but when I do, like for example, I sold a Honda Goldwing that I had for years and years and years. I sold it about a year and a half ago. And the selling point that I had on that bike was that I had on paper all of the maintenance I had done, every oil change when I'd replaced the tires, when I took it in for maintenance, I had all of that written down, including the cost, which was just for my own purpose. And we do the same thing with our cars. So when we have sold a car, we have all the maintenance stuff, all the receipts that we got from Jiffy Lube or wherever else. We've got all those receipts in there, and it turns in to be a huge selling point for selling our vehicle because someone's seen all the receipts. So is that fair to say that that's I know we don't like to talk about selling motorcycles around here because never, never actually. That would be a huge thing, though. Like if you got a bike to sell, yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, ma'am, this is a great bike. I had taken good care of it. Let me prove it to you.

Exports, QR Transfer, And Roadmap

SPEAKER_02 19:52

Exactly a hundred percent that. Yes. Um, I've I've had that same situation where I lost out on like, I don't know, 500 bucks in a in a negotiation because I didn't have any service records to prove anything. Um, and this uh so that was something that I wanted to be sure uh was a feature in the app. That when you collect all your services and you go to sell the bike, uh you can actually export to PDF and it will generate a really nice professional looking service record for you. Um multi-page, all the headers, everything really, really great looking. Um, and you can hand that right over to them. Uh and I think that another like I in the grand vision, uh the one of the features in my roadmap is to generate like a QR code or some sort of a mechanism for ownership transfer. So, like, you know, you're gonna go sell your bike, and you you're like, hey man, I I've been using lookover for all the service tracking. Um, you want to give it a try. Uh, here's this QR code, scan it, they get it, and now they can continue the service, you know, records for that bike and continue that bike's legacy and and that story and the adventures and everything else. So um that's yeah.

Pricing, Tiers, And Lifetime Option

Dealer Service, Receipts, And Imports

Ron 21:19

That's good thinking, man. I can tell you're a software engineer, you've got that mindset for sure. That is I would have never thought of that. That's a great idea. And and again, for those, for those listening, uh, again, we're gonna have all the information about how to uh how to get this app, how to try it out. But I would encourage you if you if you get it and you try it and you think it's pretty cool, like I I do, go ahead and buy it too. Because uh, you know we we talked a little bit about this, Derek and I, before I started recording. And the fact is, is that I have on my podcast, I I've been at it for three years, I do it. Because I love it. I have zero sponsorship at all. It just costs me money to do that. And that's fine. I can afford it. I can afford it. But I may start selling mugs. And I'm holding up one right now to the screen. I know you can't see it on online as you're listening, but I may start selling mugs because I think they it came out really, really good. I on my mug, uh, I'm gonna, this is my sample mug that I have in my hand right now. I'm I'm trying to perfect it, but I'm gonna make one more change to it, and then I'm gonna make it available to my listeners if you're if you're interested. I hope you would be. Uh, I think a lot of us are coffee drinkers. And by purchasing my mug, if you'd like to do that when I have it all ready and everything, it will support uh the ongoing expense that's associated with this podcast. So I just want to throw that out for for Derek. I'm looking at him right now. Again, he's sitting up in Montana, two states away from me. This is a really, really good guy, and he's created something based on a passion for motorcycling that we all have. And he's a real smart guy and has figured out you know what, nobody else is doing this, or at least they're not doing it really well. So I'll do it. So I would encourage my listeners, go out there. A link will be in the show notes of how you go to it, learn about it, download it. And if you like it, I would encourage you to buy it. So um, anyway, Derek, do you want to talk about pricing? I know this three years from now, maybe at a different price or anything right now, but for early to 2026, you want to share what the pricing is?

SPEAKER_02 23:33

Yeah, Ron. I mean, thank you for that. First of all, um, just warms my heart. Uh and yeah, so what I have, uh one of the important things that uh to me is being able to serve the community and kind of give back something, right? So this is kind of my way of doing it. Um, and so what I've done is uh there is a free tier, you know, you guys uh with the uh you can add a single bike um to your garage, right, to to look over. Um, and you can track unlimited services, unlimited uh uh uh reminders. Um and uh that'll get you like kind of the basics of the app. Um and then there is a I have a monthly, I have a annual, and I have a lifetime. So the folks that are kind of like, oh man, I don't want yet another subscription, right? Uh the lifetime option is for you, buy once, you got you know, in perpetuity, right? Like it's it's it's always gonna be there for you.

Ron 24:33

And you'll continue to receive updates, right?

Motorcycling As Health And Camaraderie

SPEAKER_02 24:35

Exactly, exactly. All the updates and stuff. So um, you're not gonna be locked into some old version or something, you always get the newest stuff. Um, and then so a monthly I it's it's uh$3.99 a month, and for yearly, it's$24.99 uh per year.

Ron 24:51

Heck of a deal. Yeah. Thank you. That's great. And and especially um, again, those of us who ride who I'm a big mileage person, relatively, relatively speaking, and uh like the kind of riding that you do, um that's tough on a machine. Uh, we got to take care of these things. They are motorcycles are not cheap, and they're not cheap to get worked on either, you know, if you got to take it into the shop or whatever. Um but that is well worth the money to um get yourself aligned with something that you literally will have in your pocket, and you can be sitting in your house and wondering, well, what do I need to do next without even going out to the bike and it's right there in your pocket, right?

SPEAKER_02 25:35

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, for I guess approximately the change of a yeah, oil change, cost of an oil change, uh kind of helps you, helps you have that and helps you have that that mindfulness and and uh uh just the pride of ownership and stuff too, right? So um yeah, yeah, thank you for that.

Ron 25:55

Well, I mentioned this to you before right before we started recording that guess where I'm gonna be at at 10 o'clock mountain time in the morning. I'm gonna be at NOCO or Northern Colorado Power Sports, which is my local BMW dealership. And that's where I have an appointment, 10 o'clock in the morning to take my pike in for the for the 40,000 mile, whatever they're gonna do. And then again, back to the app. I know they've they have done maintenance on it, and I know I I just in this case, I've I've got uh a local guy that I work with for tires and other on minor stuff, but but for the big stuff, I have BMW work on it. But as far as what they have done, I have no idea, other than if I look through my pile of receipts, you know, or if I call and ask them and they're just gonna give me printouts and stuff. But if I'd had the app, I could have uploaded all the receipts into that and all the details. So uh I will be doing that going forward.

Closing And Where To Find Lookover

SPEAKER_02 26:51

Heck yes, I love that. I love that. Yes, that's uh that's that's a that's a cool little you know plug to for for me is like you can upload receipts to each service, you know, like that is something that it supports. You can upload photos or uh other documentation, um, like for the machine itself, you could upload the service manual, right? So you always have it available to you. Um, another thought too is that you're kind of mentioning you have this collection of notes that they're somewhere that's scattered, maybe the the the service uh folks have it at at the dealership there. Um, you know, if you ask for a printout, and you know, you could uh technically like you know, you could write those out in a on a uh like a plaintext uh file or in a spreadsheet. Um and then I do have a feature of the app that has an import. So it's a smart import. Um and it uses AI to you know gather all of the data from your services and gets those imported directly into the app so you can you know keep get using it faster.

Ron 27:55

Very nice, very nice. Well, hey Derek, as we begin to wrap up, um we had a long conversation before we started recording. I am not a good interviewer, I keep having the best parts of the conversations. I'm not even recording. But one thing we did talk about though is this whole Zen mindfulness thing and how it's important. It's important because you got to be taking care of yourself these days. I mean, you work in IT, I retired from IT, and we know we we're living in a world today that is man, it is uh it's stressing everybody out. I think that's a safe safe word right now. It is a tough, confusing, stressful, anxious world right now. Um but but you and I discovered that, and we were lucky enough as even as kids, both of us, we discovered motorcycling in that this is something that takes literal virtually and physically takes me to a different place. And that's a very, very good place. So do you mind uh you know, kind of speaking to your own experience as far as what motorcycling is has meant to you?

SPEAKER_02 29:07

Yeah, I mean, it's been camaraderie, it's been a way for me to stay in shape, uh, to be uh, you know, physically in shape to go do this stuff. It's given me a lot of inspiration and and uh you know, just like this continuous uh uh strive, like I this continuous self-improvement that that I want to be in, um, you know, not just physically, but also mentally. Like I've I've started tuning into you know, peace, love moto, and and I just love you know thinking about like you know what, this is it. You know, like I am in the moment, I'm practicing being there with my my friends, with my riding buddies, um, on the trail, on the road, whatever, um, and just being mindful that I'm in play, right? Like I'm playing, right? Like I'm satisfying that inner child, and I'm I'm out there doing what I want to do and not stuck in an office someplace. And and uh, you know, I come back to work on yeah, uh the next week on Monday, and I am just refreshed, you know, like I am, you know, I'm I'm just feeling so good about things. So um that's that's kind of what it it it means to me, you know.

Ron 30:26

That's beautiful. Yeah, and then and and we're most definitely uh I said at the very beginning, and I I I believe this with all my heart, that there is just something special about um the sport, the hobby, whatever you want to call it, that we do as motorcycle riders. There's a whole bunch of elements to that. And when you meet another motorcycle rider, you've got a good friend within about five seconds. It doesn't take long at all. And and Derek, that's the way I feel. We are meeting really for the first time tonight uh as we record this. And I I am looking forward to shaking your hand and buying you a cup of coffee and and let's go for a ride.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

Heck yes, I love it. Let's do it.

Ron 31:07

That's great. Well, Derek, again, thank you for being with us. And for ever, again, for everybody listening, uh, look go over to find, and it'll be uh in the show notes, the uh lookover app. And also find him on Instagram and the lookover.app website is there and is the maintenance tracker that you need to have a look at. And I hope you'll purchase it as well. So, again, my friends, it's really good to be with you. Thank you so much. Thanks again, Ron. This is great. So hold tight just a second and I'll stop recording and I'll make sure.