Thousands of steps while cycling

[scottregan]

Whenever I wear Blaze or Charge HR while cycling, my 'steps' count for the day has 5000+ steps added.   

This happens with both 'auto-recognize' and also the explicit 'set exercise' .

One thing that is accurate -  is the actual record of the biking activity itself (either auto-recognize or set-exercise).   It says that the activity added zero steps, which is accurate.   (actually I probably walked a couple dozen steps when I got off my bike a couple times but that is not the point).

But what is not accurate - my main 'steps' graph for the day has thousands of steps added . 

I've read a few threads on this and my take is that this is a bug that will eventually get fixed, but in the meantime I should not wear fitbit while biking and just use Strava. (and by connecting to strava I can get my cycling activity in the fitbit record, which also seems to work.)

That said, did I just miss if there is any settting or fix for this?   I am not interested in marking all my cycling events as 'driving' 🙂

This error throws my weekly and monthly steps averages off quite a bit..

thanks!

[WendyB]

It detects movement. If its bumpy it will count steps.

Very few People complain aboout it adding steps while on the Bike.

Many More want more steps to be adding while biking

Its a no win situtation.

[Bradford3]

When I selected bike in activities it didn't count my steps at all.

[DaneNicholson]

For over a year now bike mode has made the watch stop tracking almost all steps; odd that it ksnt doing that for the original poster. I just leave it to autotrack because I dont care too much as it is my daily commute so I'm not looking to beat times or track the route. That said I do like getting the steps as another used above mentioned 🙂 

[HogBob]

As a motorcyclist - the blaze recognized my riding as outdoor biking. I would correct the exercise to motorcycling & the app used to deduct any steps taken. The app stopped deducting steps about the same time as the last App update.

[FerdinandFitbit]

Hi there everyone! I'm glad to see you guys participating in the Community! 🙂

@scottregan, On bumpy trails (as @WendyB mentioned above) it's possible that your tracker will register steps but these should be negligible in your overall stats by entering the driving activity. However, it should only be some steps and not that many. You can try to restart your tracker by pressing and holding the left and lower right buttons for 10-12 seconds and this will make it reboot. Try it the next time you go out on your bike and see if this makes any difference.

Everyone else, thanks so much for helping out, anything else, let me know!

[Lordrobs]

I get exactly the same thing. About 2500 steps for every 10 miles or so.

As far as I know there is no fix and I doubt their ever will be as Fitbit get far more complaints about not being credited enough steps while cycling due to the obsession Fitbit has created with "step" based challenges.

Unfortunately like you I now ditch the blaze and rely on Strava tracking for my cycing but that means I lose out on having heart rate data.

Bit of a kick in the teeth as having the bike activity mode was one of the things that swayed me towards the Blaze and reading the mis information about steps being negated in bike mode (which still gets repeated) threw me a bit of a red herring.

[bbarrera · Accepted solution]

Try this if your phone is supported by MobileTrack - add your phone as a tracker. 1. Remove Blaze before going on a ride, or turn it off. 2. Put phone in jersey or pants pocket. If you are like me then you will see something like 400-600 steps per mile. The higher your pedaling cadence, the more steps per mile.

I ride hard and do short sprint work, and want accurate heart rate so I bought the Garmin Edge 520 bundle and wear the premium chest strap. That gives me some additional data, but more importantly my speed is measured with a sensor on my hub (no magnets) and I get cadence data (sensor on crank arm). And Connect will immediately sync rides to Strava, TrainingPeaks, RideWithGPS, MapMyFitness, and Endomondo. Endomondo syncs to Fitbit as activity although due to Fitbit limitations with only time and distance. Maybe the Strava-to-Fitbit sync will feed more info, haven't tried it.

[scottregan]

Thanks.  I have found that this is the best solution as well.   I turn off the Fitbit for biking, use Strava (along with another heart rate monitor) and Fitbit will do a nice job of pulling in that ride from Strava  (if you enable the integration, and takes a few hours ).   Since I was a heavy Strava use before, this isn't really a problem , just getting in the habit of not wearing the fitbit while cycling. 

[bbarrera]

@scottregan good to hear it worked out for you

[dewjr61]

How about while on a stationary bike?

My blaze is giving me thousands of steps while i'm riding a stationary bike.  No change in my linear location, so I would think the Blaze would recognize this as "not counting".  But it happens every day.

I don't want to have to remove my watch every time i get on the bike.

[Rich_Laue]

Hello @dewjr61 if your Blaze is on the arm, and your arm is on the handlebar, remembering that the arm must be moving to count steps, what is it about your exercise bike that maybe causing this much movement? 

How expensive was it? Do the handlebars bounce around or maybe even intentionally move? 

It might also be excess vibration from the wheel. 

[dewjr61]

Yes, it's on my arm/wrist.

It's a modern LifeCycle, very stable, so it's not vibrating much or moving at all.  Stable handlebars.  My arms certainly move over the course of time; I figured that since i wasn't "moving forward", the watch would recognize this and not register steps. 

Kind of like when i use a stair climber and the watch does not perceive an altitude change so I don't get credit for flights of steps.  But that's another thread...

Thanks.

[Rich_Laue]

@dewjr61 while recording the bike ride, which mode are you using? 

Do you manually start Bike with the gps turned off? 

Use the spinning mode? 

Or let the Blaze auto detect? 

One thing you could do is a restart by holding in both the left and lower right buttons. 

As for physically moving forward this is not needed, many find they get steps by jumping in place, or sitting in a rocking chair..

[dewjr61]

To be honest, not doing any of that.

I manually enter the exercise through MyFitnessPal. 

Not using spinning mode on the lifcycle, just manual programs.  I suppose the Blaze is "auto detecting", becaaus I'm not changing any of the normal settings when I exercise.

When you say GPS turned off, do you mean on my phone?  No, i don't have GPS "turned off".  I can turn off location settings or "motion and fitness" from my phone while i'm stationary riding, I guess. 

I don't want to "reset" if it's going to go back to zero steps for the day and delete any actual walking i'm doing.

[Rich_Laue]

The Blaze has some exercises that the user is able to start directly from the wrist. Two of which is Spiining, think stationary bike, and Biking. Hen swiping to the exercise menu, if it was added there is a bike mode, and before starting you'll see a gear in the lower left.. Tap this and there will be an option for GPS on/off
In any case because your using a third party app, I assume it syncs the record over to fitbit, this would have no affect.
Many bike riders complain about steps being counted while riding, while others complain that not enough steps are recorded.

[bbarrera]

@dewjr61 try putting Blaze into Spin exercise mode before starting, and then stop when finished. That should dramatically reduce the number of steps recorded by Blaze.

[GlobalBrian]

I definitely would like to see Fitbit convert cycling to step equivalents. I get almost all my exercise from biking and would like to have challenges with friends who walk.

[AlejandraFitbit]

A warm welcome to the Community @GlobalBrian. I know that it would be great to have an option to register steps while cycling but keep in mind that you are not actually walking so it would be a little bit hard to implement this. You can take a look at the KEEP Steps while CYCLING request, vote for it and leave your comment.

See you around. 

[GlobalBrian]

I'd still like cycling steps as an option. I understand it shouldn't  be a one for one , but rather a step equivalent that is based on some formula of duration, pace, and heart rate/exertion. Fitbit already has the data - let's put it to good use.