How can i track biking miles with Fitbit?

[evepsalti]

How can I track biking with Fitbit?

[SteveH]

The problem with fitbits is that they are pedometers and are designed to track steps. They assume that anything we do is either walking or running and assign calories, active minutes etc accordingly. If it does track some steps from your cycling the calories and active minutes are likely to be inaccurate.

The way round this is to tell fitbit that you are not just walking or running and you do this by manually logging the activity. 

https://help.fitbit.com/customer/portal/articles/413311

[Colinm39]

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@evepsalti wrote:

How can I track biking with Fitbit?

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@evepsaltiYou can manually track your biking by clicking Log, Activities and selecting the bike symbol.

If you know the distance and enter that, you will get that and your calories, if you don't know the distance, and click Don't know your distance, you can enter Intensity but you will only get calories.

You can work out you distance by using the Google Map Pedometer link here

http://www.mappedometer.com/

[SunsetRunner]

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@evepsalti wrote:

How can I track biking with Fitbit?

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Use Endomondo and link the accounts.

http://www.endomondo.com/

https://www.fitbit.com/apps/endomondo

[Wembley]

Hi Colin,

For some reason, when I try to enter my cycling and I don't know the distance, which I don't and I'm just learning to bike again -- I put in the 10mph intensity and then when I click log it just turns the intensity box red.  Even if I keep up the mph entries to get it to work, it never does..it just outlines that box in red and won't let me log what I entered.  Bummer.

Also, for the life of me I can't figure out how to use that wonderful mappedometer link that you provided.  If I am doing a subdivision of going in and out of neighbourhoods, I click on my house where I start but I can't figure out how I do a non-linear route.  I basically need a whole bunch of starts and stops which isn't working and I can't figure out how to just free-hand draw my route from the start and then click or double click to signify the end (back home).  Any ideas?

Thanks so much!

[Colinm39]

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@Wembley wrote:

Hi Colin,

For some reason, when I try to enter my cycling and I don't know the distance, which I don't and I'm just learning to bike again -- I put in the 10mph intensity and then when I click log it just turns the intensity box red.  Even if I keep up the mph entries to get it to work, it never does..it just outlines that box in red and won't let me log what I entered.  Bummer.

Also, for the life of me I can't figure out how to use that wonderful mappedometer link that you provided.  If I am doing a subdivision of going in and out of neighbourhoods, I click on my house where I start but I can't figure out how I do a non-linear route.  I basically need a whole bunch of starts and stops which isn't working and I can't figure out how to just free-hand draw my route from the start and then click or double click to signify the end (back home).  Any ideas?

Thanks so much!

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@WembleyI have included the image at the end of this post showing the error and the Moderators @MatthewFitbit  will pass it on to Support.

It occurs on all of my browsers on a Windows 7 computer and even if I enter the calories. It was working when I posted last month because I always test before I post a solution.

Here is an example of using Google Pedometer and the link again.  http://www.mappedometer.com/

Bike Error

[Colinm39]

@WembleyApologies. I didn't fully answer your post.. I use the straight line option for walking through parks and country side.

But I haven't ever found a way to start and stop and continue in another spot. The only way I can do that is to make a note of the first distance, remove all points and then click on the map again and start another route, swapping between straight line and Cycle or walking..

Another Fitbitter may chime in and help.

[Wembley]

Hi Colin,

Thank you. I did use the straight line and I just click top of the street, bottom of the street, next corner and so on.  In my case, the stop point kept moving but I was clicking at corners and so forth.  It turned out pretty well.  I have just started riding a bike again so I put the FitBit through my shoelaces, as I saw someone suggest here (since the first time I rode I got very little from the FitBit), calorie burn was ok but I am sure it's not totally accurate. But it seems there is no way to manually enter the miles travelled in the Log.  That's a bummer. 😞

Thanks again.

[Colinm39]

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@Wembley wrote:

Hi Colin,

Thank you. I did use the straight line and I just click top of the street, bottom of the street, next corner and so on.  In my case, the stop point kept moving but I was clicking at corners and so forth.  It turned out pretty well.  I have just started riding a bike again so I put the FitBit through my shoelaces, as I saw someone suggest here (since the first time I rode I got very little from the FitBit), calorie burn was ok but I am sure it's not totally accurate. But it seems there is no way to manually enter the miles travelled in the Log.  That's a bummer. 😞

Thanks again.

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@WembleyYou can enter total miles when you select the Bike option. It worked for me last night after I tested the "I don't know distance option".  Here is a worked example, but my miles get converted to Km's

But the Fitbit on the ankle will only give you the cadence. That is why the calories are probably close. I did some tests last year on a stationary bike using the Fitbit One and found the abnormal detection of movement kept the calories high but the Fitbit only saw one step for each 2 revolutions of your legs, 1 x LH and 1 x RH.

The example overwrote the calories for the 30 minutes and I received 30 active minutes (AM) and the steps remained intact, so you would have gained the calorie burn and the AM

Hope this helps and off for some shuteye, now 12-40am..

[Heybales]

I don't think you need to use the straight line function if you are on streets, and yes the end point is supposed to keep following the last place clicked. You'll get faster at clicking further along the route knowing how far is long enough before it auto-selects a shorter route to get to next click. Corner by corner isn't always needed.

Since the steps, distance, and calorie burn are all so inaccurate to be bogus - just input all the info yourself and get it more correct. Might even get more steps with it on your hip, because you'll get road bumps too besides just 1 leg going down instead of the normal 2.

My last ride the Fitbit had these stats:

12389 steps, 6.46 miles, 2:09 hr, 1059 cal

So no wonder I got such a low calorie burn, 6.5 miles in 2 hrs is pretty slow pace.

Real stats:

34.8 miles, 2:09 hr, 1806 cal

And if I look at my measured cadence per pedal sensor, 87.2 avg x 102.5 min (some coasting) = 8938 complete rotations or would have been 17876 "steps" per foot.

So Fitbit saw more than it would have device on just 1 foot, but still couldn't see all foot "steps". Which wouldn't have mattered in the scheme of things anyway - distance and calories still wouldn't have been correct - the formula is based on walking/running, which biking obviously isn't.

And that was with Zip on hip.