Blaze bike recording

[TCFITTER]

Can the Blaze record stationary cycling activity when strapped on your wrist? Your ankle?
How does it track cycling on the road?

[Silvy1013]

I agree. I've neglected my three bikes this summer in an effort to get steps. I feel guilty if I ride my bike now because it "doesn't count."

[Rézika]

Sounds like me today.  How frustrating!  Took me a few hours to set-up my fitbit Blaze then rode my bike for a good hour at a good speed to find out that the km were not registered.   Disappointed!  

[Rich_Laue]

@Rézika, for clarity which one of the three ways was your bike ride recorded? 

Was nothing done and you auto detected? 

Did you start the tracking and used the connected GPS carrying the lhone, or used the bicycle mode without the phpne? 

For mileage connected gps must be used. 

[Rézika]

@Rich-Laue
I biked without a phone so no GPS. I guess this is why my km were not
recorded. Thanks for your answer.

[Rich_Laue]

When biking without the Gps the Blaze has no refrance points to look at, it still uses time and heart rate to help figure the calories

[FireSong163]

I'm very frustrated. Just upgraded from the Charge HR (which gave me credit for steps while cycling) to the Blaze. Just finish d a two hour ride & received zero credit for steps! What?! So very disappointed & don't understand why the didn't keep
This feature in the upgraded product. I participate in Fitbit challenges with friends & family who live near & far. There's no way I can participate now.

[FireSong163]

Probably because we like to ride. There's only so many hours in a day!

[Baltoscott]

@FireSong163 - I am assuming that you started a bike activity on the Blaze so that you would get an accurate phone based GPS record of your mileage.  The activity record does not show any steps because fitbit knows that you were riding a bike for that time period, and many people complain that you should not be getting ANY step credit while riding a bike (and lets be honest, the step count while riding a bike is pretty meaningless).  

I've done a few tests by sycning before and after rides, and fitbit does not completely eliminate steps when you start a bike activity from the blaze, but it does seem to make the blaze a lot less sensitive than normal to the bumps in the road that count as "steps" when you are wearing a wristbased fitbit tracker like your old charge HR.  As an example, this morning I biked about 5 miles to breakfast and then back home.  I recorded both 5 mile trips through bike activities on my Blaze and wound up with a total of around 500 steps for the total 10 miles and one hour I was on the bike (or about 50 steps/mile).  If I don't start a bike activity on the blaze and just wear it when I ride, I wind up with about 500 steps/mile and and 5,000 - 6,000 steps/hour.   So using the bike activity seems to supress the number of steps the Blaze records while riding a bike by about 90%.  

If getting a higher step count is important to you for your fitbit challenges, don't initiate a bike activity when you ride your bike.  You still won't get as many steps/hour as you would if you just walk fast, but you will get a lot more step credit than you do if you start a bike activity from the Blaze.

[bbarrera]

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@FireSong163 wrote:
This feature in the upgraded product. I participate in Fitbit challenges with friends & family who live near & far. There's no way I can participate now.

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@FireSong163Using Bike mode on Blaze will result in very few steps, as you aren't stepping. What you want to do for steps is:
- don't use bike mode, and disable biking in SmartTrack
and
- put Blaze in pocket or wear on ankle

or

- add your phone as a 2nd tracker using Fitbit MobileTrack and leave Blaze at home

I've been using the 2nd option and I get about 400-600 steps per mile, depending on my cadence. The basic rule of thumb when using MobileTrack and phone in jersey pocket is: 1.5-2.0 x cadence in RPMs x minutes cycling. So if I rode for 90 minutes with average cadence of 85rpm then I get:
Low end: 11,475 steps (90*85*1.5)
High end: 15,300 steps (90*85*2)

For example yesterday I rode 58 minutes at 78rpm average cadence (20.4 miles at 20.9mph)

Low end: 6,786 steps

High end: 9,048 steps

>> Steps recorded by Fitbit MobileTrack: 7,627 steps <<

Recently I've done some very long downhill rides - a 15 minute descent, 3154 foot drop over 9 miles with -7% average grade - I wasn't pedaling for most of that descent and I only got a few steps with MobileTrack. So it isn't picking up vibrations in the road, its picking up my pedaling.

[Rich_Laue]

It actually has nothing to do with your cadence. It has to do with the gear ratio, which will determine how far the bicycle goes with each pedal.. Your fad pence will eel you how many times the pedal goes around every minute.. So to be correct your cadence will determine how many steps you receive per minute, not miles. Miles will change when the gears are changed. Cadence should not change, that is why there are gears. 

[Baltoscott]

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@bbarrera wrote:

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@FireSong163 wrote:
This feature in the upgraded product. I participate in Fitbit challenges with friends & family who live near & far. There's no way I can participate now.

---

@FireSong163Using Bike mode on Blaze will result in very few steps, as you aren't stepping. What you want to do for steps is:
- don't use bike mode, and disable biking in SmartTrack
and
- put Blaze in pocket or wear on ankle

or

- add your phone as a 2nd tracker using Fitbit MobileTrack and leave Blaze at home

I've been using the 2nd option and I get about 400-600 steps per mile, depending on my cadence. The basic rule of thumb when using MobileTrack and phone in jersey pocket is: 1.5-2.0 x cadence in RPMs x minutes cycling. So if I rode for 90 minutes with average cadence of 85rpm then I get:
Low end: 11,475 steps (90*85*1.5)
High end: 15,300 steps (90*85*2)

For example yesterday I rode 58 minutes at 78rpm average cadence (20.4 miles at 20.9mph)

Low end: 6,786 steps

High end: 9,048 steps

>> Steps recorded by Fitbit MobileTrack: 7,627 steps <<

Recently I've done some very long downhill rides - a 15 minute descent, 3154 foot drop over 9 miles with -7% average grade - I wasn't pedaling for most of that descent and I only got a few steps with MobileTrack. So it isn't picking up vibrations in the road, its picking up my pedaling.

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 @bbarrera -- your observations are more or less consistant with mine except that disabling Biking in SmartTrack doesn't seem to affect the step count I get while riding my bike.

I do get higher step counts if I put my Blaze (or Charge HR, or One) in my pocket, but I agree with @Rich_Laue that step counts for a tracker in your pocket on the bike are more associated with your cadence than bumps in the road.  In my case, that generally works out to around 500 steps/mile, but only on average -- my cadence is usually a little higher up hill because I use granny gears.  If I'm on bumpy Baltimore streets with the Blaze or HR on my wrist, I tend to get a few less steps/mile (or hour) than when I've got the tracker in my pocket -- where cadence would get picked up -- but not that much less.

[bbarrera]

I usually get 400-600 steps per mile. I ride up steep hills in the Sierra mountains, cadence is pretty low say 40-60rpm in my lowest gear on 10-15% grades (34 front ring, 32 back cassette).

Rich's usually says steps are from tracker picking up bumps. I've found its cadence, not bumps.

[FireSong163]

I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Do you put it into gps tracking mode or switch to the 'bike' screen before hand? My last ride logged zero steps and my cadence is good. Averaging 12-15mph on a mt bike.

Sent from my iPhone

[FireSong163]

Thank you!! Super helpful!! I'm going to try it out.

Sent from my iPhone

[FireSong163]

Thank you so much for the feedback!

Sent from my iPhone

[bbarrera]

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@FireSong163 wrote:
I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Do you put it into gps tracking mode or switch to the 'bike' screen before hand? My last ride logged zero steps and my cadence is good. Averaging 12-15mph on a mt bike.

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Putting it bike mode will give the lowest number of steps. Bike mode will not give you many steps. You will lose GPS and mapping.

If you want steps, don't put Blaze into any mode - just take off wrist and put in pocket or on ankle.

[Meglmt]

I use the spinning mode on my surge and have tried to get the same answer as you. One would assume you could say don't use GPS.
I'm not spinning -
I'm biking-
Call me crazy ...

[Rézika]

😂

[Rézika]

😂

[Dixon1]

But it seems like the speed is not accurate....