Tracking Biking

[workmom3]

I have read that to track biking that you can put the Flex in your sock/shoe.

I have done that and it seems to be ok....I think.  Has anyone had success with this?  Thoughts and suggestions?

[Heybales]

Track what exactly?

Half the non-steps you are actually taking? Yes, that works.

Calories based on walking those half the steps for a formula totally wrong for biking? Yes, that works too.

If your only purpose in using Fitbit is to get some, any, steps, then yes that works fine to get some better than less.

If purpose was to more closely know how much you burn so you can eat reliably less and lose weight, then you need to manually enter the workout to replace the badly incorrect calorie burn.

[Dominique · Accepted solution]

If you want your calories to be correct, you need to log your biking (and any other non-step-based activity), as explained here:

https://help.fitbit.com/customer/portal/articles/413311-how-do-i-log-or-record-an-activity-

[TCG · Accepted solution]

I bought an odometer by Bell and it measures calories burned plus fat calories burned and I manually put that into my log. I ride at least twice a week and the Fitbit did not reflect the workout.

[Dominique]

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@TCG wrote:

I bought an odometer by Bell and it measures calories burned plus fat calories burned and I manually put that into my log. I ride at least twice a week and the Fitbit did not reflect the workout.

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Just curious: how would the odometer know how much fat you burned? My understanding is what your body decides to use as fuel during exercise depends on parameters such as your heart rate, which your odometer has no way to know. Besides, since fat is a fuel, shouldn't the quantity burned during exercise be expressed in grams (or other weight unit), rather than calories?

[Heybales]

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@Dominique wrote:

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@TCG wrote:

I bought an odometer by Bell and it measures calories burned plus fat calories burned and I manually put that into my log. I ride at least twice a week and the Fitbit did not reflect the workout.

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Just curious: how would the odometer know how much fat you burned? My understanding is what your body decides to use as fuel during exercise depends on parameters such as your heart rate, which your odometer has no way to know. Besides, since fat is a fuel, shouldn't the quantity burned during exercise be expressed in grams (or other weight unit), rather than calories?

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Agreed, while the standard formulas for walking and running can be very accurate for calories burned, they have no indication of the fitness level of the person doing the effort, which is totally what is going to effect what ration of carb : fat was burned.

It only knows from studies that so much VO2 was needed for this effort, not the VO2max of the person.

Quantity could be calories or grams since 9 cal = 1 gr. 

[malpaso223]

I have a fitbit flex and put the tracker in my sock. I also wear a HRM and 'try' to keep it in the 120-140 range for me (54, 205lb) so although I don't enter both I keep track of the steps. In the end it all adds up-

[Heybales]

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@malpaso223 wrote:

I have a fitbit flex and put the tracker in my sock. I also wear a HRM and 'try' to keep it in the 120-140 range for me (54, 205lb) so although I don't enter both I keep track of the steps. In the end it all adds up-

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Actually, if walking though, the device is only going to see the impact of 1 step if it's on your foot.

The foot it's on impacting ground will cause a step, the other foot landing wouldn't be seen since the foot with device is still on the ground too.

So it's totally calculating things wrong on about 1/2 the steps in same amount of time.

[malpaso223]

oh shyt- wow. hmmm, knees are in really bad shape so the bike is my main
cardio activity- any ideas on where to keep the fitbit and still track
steps?
and thanks for the reply-

[Heybales]

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@malpaso223 wrote:
oh shyt- wow. hmmm, knees are in really bad shape so the bike is my main
cardio activity- any ideas on where to keep the fitbit and still track
steps?
and thanks for the reply-

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Ah, biking.

Outdoors I get more bogus "steps" with it on my hip - most likely combo of real pedal pushes and road vibrations.

It's always greater than 1/2 I'd get if it was in 1 shoe only counting 1 foot going down, then again it may still feel the road vibrations to some extent, but in testing I got more on hip.

Distance was of course way off, as was resulting calorie burn, so still gotta log it manually.

If you go look at my Profile, Activities tab, you'll see several rides in there with activity record pre-manual logging, and then manual workout record with better estimates of distance and calories.

Calories is about 1/2 what i really burned with best estimate. Distance as calculated from "steps" Fitbit saw is meaningless.

Steps no where near how often my feet actually went around. Last ride on 4/1 saw 11k steps in the almost 2 hrs.

My actual cadence as measured on the bike was avg 86.8 x 97 min (coasting time removed) = 8420 for 1 foot rotate, x 2 for both feet = 16840 "steps".

So you won't get accurate "steps" seen, and the calculated calorie burn related to those steps or even all "steps" seen wouldn't be right anyway.

Now, I'm sure I could fanangle a way to get enough road vibration steps and distance and calorie burn estimate to match up to riding slow enough that my actual calorie burn matched.

But I don't want to ride that slow, it depends on the road, and I'm manually logging it anyway.

[HaphazardHen]

For biking I use the app Strava. It uses your wattage to determine calorie burn. It will not work on a stationary bike though. Then I manually enter the exercise.

[SunsetRunner]

A-ha, @HaphazardHen, that's what I was wondering is if there is an app for bicycling. I don't ride as much as I should (just enough to give the dogs a real good run) but I would like to track the activity more accurately!

[iwarrior]

Yet to try cycling (in the gym) while wearing the FitBit, but I have been using the treadmill and cross trainer (elliptical) and it tracks steps for both of those, not just the treadmill. I am now intrigued as to what the readout will be when I cycle 😛

[Bradford3]

I use mapmyride app on my phone. It uses GPS and you can tie it into Fitbit account so it automatically imports your workouts.

[MaggieTS]

Can someone please help me. I bought a Fitbit Surge for bike riding and the ride mode is not showing on my Serge.  Someone said go to Dashboard Settings, Device and Exercise Shortcuts.  Well I have found Dashboard but can't find anything.  Can someone please help me and very basic easy steps.  Thanks

[Heybales]

You would be best served actually go to the group that is ALL Surge owners and supporters - searching if answer is already there, and if not posting your question.

You'll have limited audience here hoping to luck out more.

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Surge/bd-p/surge