Bicycle vs Steps

[Jeffcozzag]

I have a Charge 3.  Chose Bike as my activity, watched it connect, finished the ride of 7.39 miles, saw the map on My Dashboard at Fitbit, but it added activity minutes and calories but not mileage nor steps. Is that "by design"?

Does competing with a friend mean that we have to also agree on the specific activity somehow?

[JohnnyRow]

For mileage, if you are talking about daily total, bike rides don't count, only walking or running.

Steps are not an inherent part of bike riding.  You will probably get some steps, just from the vibrations on your wrist.

[LZeeW]

@Jeffcozzag   Yes, that is by design.  The distance badges have always been based on steps.  Fitbit has never included GPS biking mileage in your total mileage.

Now that there are different kinds of challenges with the choice of active minutes, steps or distance (or all three in the case of Get Fit Bingo), it is important that users agree on what is OK.

[Jeffcozzag]

One still picks up and puts down their feet when cycling.  Its seems that, with all the data points for so many people that an algorithm could be built to convert speed, distance, height, weight, stride length, heart rate, from one exercise to another for a fair, and agreed upon, true measurement of tracking all activity.  Sort of like the "sleep score" that has been added.

[JohnnyRow]

It makes no difference how many times you pick up and put down our feet when the tracker is on your wrist.  It only detects steps because you normally swing your arms when walking, unlike when biking.

[Jeffcozzag]

I thought I had posted this response but do not see it. Putting your feet up and down was a simile.  In other words steps can be calculated with the data points already mentioned. What's in my wrist or on my head doesn't come into play on this question. Since Fitbit does nums. 1 and 2.  What is the problem with the algorithm that follows?  Doesn't need to count anything on your wrist.  It is using GPS and a predetermined length of step length as defined by Fitbit. It is just a matter of programming. Step 1

Stand square with your feet hip-width apart. Place a 12-inch piece of tape just in front of your toes. Take 10 normal steps forward, then place your feet together and put another piece of tape down in front of your toes.

Step 2

Measure between the two pieces of tape and divide by 10 to get your average stride length. So if you walked 25 feet between the tape pieces, your average stride length is 25 / 10 = 2.5 feet.

Step 3

Write down how many miles you've cycled. Multiply this number by 5,280 to convert it to how many feet you've cycled. So if you cycled four miles today, your calculation is 4 * 5,280 = 21,120 feet cycled.

Step 4

Divide the number of feet cycled by your average stride length, or feet per step. To conclude the example, you have 21,120 feet cycled / 2.5 feet average stride length = 8,448 steps taken to cover the same amount of distance you cycled.

[JohnnyRow]

I didn't bother following all your calculations, but I agree it certainly is possible to do some sort of pseudo-conversion between bike miles and running/walking miles.  While at it, how about adding in swimming also.  When I was younger and fitter, I used to have my own conversions to track biking and swimming in terms of equivalent running miles.

I suppose the best answer is that Fitbit just doesn't do that.  You are certainly welcome  make that suggestion on the Feature Suggestions Board .

[Rich_Laue]

On a bike, the rider is not stepping so stride is irrelevant. As for disdance/pedal relationship this will deepen on the tire size and the gear the user is in. 

The distance should show up in the record of the bike ride. 

As for steps on the leaderboard. Only steps recorded by a Fitbit device will show, Manually entered or steps entered by a third party app will not show up. 

[Jeffcozzag]

Wow... Fitbit does one and two, but 3 and 4 were "all my calculations".  Sorry it was confusing.  I will try to make it clearer next time.  I agree about swimming.  All activities advertised should be converted to an "activity" score just like the totally easy to understand "sleep" score. Doing a quick look shows that it has been put in as an idea before (Biking, Swimming, Elliptical, etc).  It seems to be continually shot down as "Not possible". Heck, even having a milage "score" for each possible activity with an overall total would be step in the right direction.   Maybe the programmer with skills, could start working on Activity Score now that sleep score is done..  You know....sort of why you buy the tracker in the first place.  OK product but not really a "fitness" tracker. Just a "track the fitness it wants to" tracker.

[JohnnyRow]

Not saying your calcs were confusing; I just got the gist and acknowledged it is possible without dealing with specific calculations.

In a sense "active minutes" give a rough idea of what you are asking for.  And AZM (Active Zone Minutes) coming with Charge 4, and hopefully eventually making it to other trackers, is an even better measure, giving minutes based on heart rate zones.

[Jeffcozzag]

@Rich_Laue It was recorded by a Fitbit Device.  Gear, tire size do matter. Easy parameters to add for a programmer. Like where you can add weight and stride length and choose whether it is automatically measured or not)   Although, it is still GPS.  It's not like Fitbit cares if I carry a backpack with 50 lb weights on me when I run.  (only 25 but who's counting I guess) either so a close approximation has to be better than ignoring it.

[Jeffcozzag]

We, essentially, have that with Charge 3 if you look hard enough.  Still a thumb in a hole type of 'fix'.  It's all just simple algorithms. but....? Now I need a Charge 52 to get there?

[Rich_Laue]

@Jeffcozzag Fitbit doesn't really need to know how much weight that you have in a backpack. Calories are determined by heart rate, and maybe speed, we don't really know. 

As for steps, like swimming the user does not take any. 

If you have what you want on the Charge 3, you should have it with the charge 4. I thought you have been asking about the Charge 3? 

Yes, that is exactly what I said, tire size and gear ratio do matter and would need to be added to Fitbit. Along with every gear change. Or as one of the feature requests a Fitbit developed wheel sensor. 

[Jeffcozzag]

So now buy the new one ones because that which the old one said they would do but don't, even though it has the required "info. "Because they can't do it themselves?"  Are you one of the "volunteers" where they give "extra" access to items so that you can to blow up the"right" answer or someone who can't see the easy comparison of apples to apples, regardless of your work out type.  The advertising sounds more "specific" then  "get  general health". Even fitbit Versa 3's unfortunate claim to fame is "It can store over 300 songs, as well, so it can keep you energized through a long workout session". LOL!. Who cares about songs, when distance and stamina matter.

So Spotify on, its own, on my immediate desire. Without one 'whit" of cooperation with you can already do this?.  Enhancement from you, I think not..  Looks like Garmin and Polar out rank you pretty well.. We all know Fitbit doesn't track mileage or calories well.  It doesn't track 'running' well either (Never mind swimming as one unfocused, non-full execising amaetur stated,and even that calroie measuremnet) has even turned out very suspect,given many routes of the same paths showing differing results on mileage alone.  Will this be seen or is this so bad I get blocked?
Sleep score is what we get.. Not Fitness score?  REALLY?

[Rich_Laue]

Fitbit does not sell a Fitbit 3. 

No one has requested a fitness score, maybe because we already have a Cardio fitness score. Which sounds like what your asking for. 

Your first about 115 word sentence makes little sense. 

As for my relationship, just follow the link. 

[Jeffcozzag]

@Rich_Laue Go back to the thread Charge 3, (sorry I mis-spoke although that shouldn't be too hard to figure out......... or one of numerous names they have made for various trackers.  Have some more Flavor aide.  If it didn't make sense you would have said it before in the post that responded to it.  Translating bike to steps IS NOT ALL THAT HARD. (need more?)  Either way, Google better do something with their new purchase.  BTW... You are a programmer, right?  You understand data and apps?  How to write them?  What data points and elements they work with?  How easy it is to present data in many ways?
Enjoy, Hope Google fixes your measurements to be apples to apples across your overall health.Without making you buy "the next one".  Trust your own calculations, After all you are a legend. (cultish isn't it).  BTW.... Checked your profile.  4x over 35,000 steps badge earned last in 4/2016.Great.  Mine doesn't even count the bike so...even worse.  They don't give you anything for doing nearly nothing.

[Jeffcozzag]

And cardio fitness doesn' discern between exercise type ether 🙂

[Rich_Laue]

Is it really important to have a score for an individual exercise, and what factors will go into the determination of a score? An exercise score will give a score for that exercise and will tell nothing on the health of a user. 

The cordial score is a rating on the users over all health. 

As for Google, why would they fix a "so called problem for one user" when Google currently has nothing to do with Fitbit. 

As for programming, yes I did a lot of programming in Cobal, Basic, and Fortran on an IBM 360 back in the early 1070's. Recently I've been fooling around with Android and Python. 

The last business program I help write was a few routines in Basic on a Perkin Elmer computer back in about 1988. The final product worked so well that it was the first time IBM realized the main frame computer is in its way out. The software also got a write-up on the front page of the NY Times Business Section

Now give me a spreadsheet, I can express the data any way you want it. My Fitbit data gets dumped into a Google sheet every night. 

[Jeffcozzag]

@Rich_Laue  Good sarcasm --- "for one user". Look harder, there are more.. Yes it is important and even very possible. Better yet, this isn't even a "fix".  We all know calories get counted wrong on Fitbit but we accept the swag.  We all know moving your wrist will count steps that aren't steps on Fitbit but we accept the swag. We know that the sleep score misses time here and there on Fitbit but we accept the swag. 

The data for a swag overall is certainly there.

Oh wait, you're also aren't sure what Google has to do with it? Or you can try this link - for educational purposes it appears.

[Rich_Laue]

As for translating biking into to steps with 166 votes 

Convert Bike Distance (or Spinning) into Steps

We also have a feature suggestion asking for all steps be removed during a bike ride with 381 votes

Option to remove steps earned when cycling

With 59 votes we have 

Adding bike miles to the weekly report.

None of these requests, if implemented, will add Biking data to the leaderboard. As you can see, almost no one seems to be concerned either way on this subject. 

As for your point 3, that is easy. As for point 4 above. Your walking, or should we use running stride, it doesn't matter since neither has anything to do with being on a bike. 

The correct way to convert, that is the way other websites do, is to compair the calories burnt during the ride to how how many running steps would need to be taken for an equivalent caloric burn.