Bike Ride Not Recording

[Survey]

I am becoming more and more discontented with my Fitbit.  Steps seem generally OK. But several times now when I press 'Bike' activity and I see the phone without a line through it, at the end of the ride such as today when I completed 17.5 miles it actually has recorded 0.2miles. Hopeless. And as for the GPS - When I have the phone (Samsung S7) within 1m of the fitbit seldom is a map available. As this is becoming more prevalent is this built-in obsolescence?

And as for the crazy charging lead??? Why not use a standard USB phone cable to make life easy. The number of times I have gone away for a few days and forgotten the special cradle lead but always have a phone USB lead.

I do wonder if this forum is read by Fitbit as when I have complained about matters such as the inability to delete steps (that occur when driving or washing up etc), fitbit say that they have passed this on to their IT people but nothing ever happens at all.  But very many users have complained about such failings.

I am seriously thinking of having to change to another make of activity tracker - one that has GPS and also a sensible charging rate etc. Shame though.

[AlvaroFitbit]

@Survey A warm welcome to our Community! Sorry to hear about your issues with your Charge 2. Try refreshing the link between your phone and your tracker by going to your phone's bluetooth settings and remove all devices listed there. Restart your phone and restart your device. After this try syncing them. Also, if you are using an Android device, check that your app has the necessary permissions (settings > apps > Fitbit > permissions) and make sure bluetooth and location services (GPS) are on. You can negate these steps by logging a driving activity. Finally you can vote for the idea about using an USB charging cable in our Feature Suggestions board. the more votes an idea gets the more likely the developers will try to implement it.

Let me know how it goes!

[Survey]

Hi,Well I did all that today. Interestingly my bike ride was decided and showed a reasonably accurate map. However the mileage was something like 0.5 miles instead of 6 miles. Hopeless really.It's no use voting for a charge lead change as I did this a couple of years ago and lots of users have commented but the developers ignore all including the ability to delete steps! Clearly they are not interested.


David

[Survey]

Today's bike ride. Fitbit recorded the time duration OK. I think the heartbeat and calorie count was OK.  Using my phone's GPS the route map looks OK. Mileage of 6 miles was recorded by Fitbit as 0.3 miles. This defect is a regular occurrence.Really hopeless. My daughter has a Garmin with inbuilt GPS and that seems trouble -free and accurate! Wish Fitbit could sort this out before I switch to another activity tracker!

[jk010]

It's 2020 and still happening. Fitbit Versa. Manually start a bike ride (we all know it won't auto detect that, never has in all of Fitbits existence), and come back home after 10 miles. At the end i discover it has only recorded 4 or 5 sometimes. I'm streaming music through my phone the whole time, so i know i haven't lost data... what gives after all these years Fitbit??

[BlackBeard99]

I'm having what sounds like the identical issue with bicycle mode.  My walks and my runs are all mapped, recorded, and synced perfectly.  But bicycle mode only works some of the time.    Bicycle records the exercise parameters -- heartrate and all that.  But it doesn't record the GPS parameters.   Walk and Run record everything.

I don't use the automatic detect for exercise.   I turn it manually, click start, and then when I'm done I click finish.   

     Why would it work flawlessly for walking and for running, but hardly ever for bicycle.   

[PaulC996]

Recently purchased the fitbit and having the same issue. No problems recording walks, but manually start and stop the ride and have the general data recorded but no distance or speed for the ride.

[Lirrana]

I agree with you. Recently, I also began to notice such problems. I can drive a car and Fitbit records it to me as steps. I believe that this is some kind of failure. Just watch Fitbit one of the best companies. It seems to me that if you write to them again, they will help.

[Groov1r]

I agree with you. Recently, I also began to notice such problems. I can drive a car and Fitbit records it to me as steps. I believe that this is some kind of failure. Just watch Fitbit one of the best companies. It seems to me that if you write to them again, they will help. After all, Fitbit has many advantages. For example when I'm on my bike it shows the exact number of rotation of the pedals. Despite the fact that I have different accessories for the bike. It's just that I've been spending too much time at https://www.amazon.com/Vont-Rechargeable-Illumination-Resistant-Accessories/dp/B078TB9TMK.

[justjustdoit]

Same issue with me. Purchased the device few days ago. Runs and walks seem fine. But for my today's ride it stopped recording gps coordinates in last half of the ride. I also had Strava running on the same phone and it recorded everything perfectly.

[Cherona13]

Fitbit! Are you guys going to solve this issue. I biked to dinner and back tonight and nothing is logged.  What gives?

[Alexa9]

I'm having the same isse with my bike rides in Charge4. The very reason for buying Charge 4 is because it has GPS to track my ride data. It is very inconsistent and unreliable.

[RoseAB]

I have the same issue. When using the exercise app on the watch, I find when starting a run it searches for GOS whereas fails to do so when pressing start on a bike exercise...

[Bubaluke39]

I am having the same issues with the bike setting. The past 2 fit bits (4 and 5) The 2 and the 3 worked fine until the battery died. Not sure why this is doing this. If it cant connect to GPS don't track that and still record. I MTB and I don't really know when its not going to pick that up. COME ON FITBIT.

[Bdabney3]

This issue may never be resolved because I really believe they only work on issues they decide matter. I have had literally model of fitbit ever. It’s steps I like to track. The very first fitbit flex would count every cycle of my pedals as a step. I loved that: Step-equivalents so to speak. Unfortunately not a single model since then has counted steps on a bicycle. I have done test after test. Now I just put my fitbit in my pocket when I ride the bike. It counts about 33% of them which is better than when it is in my wrist. If it’s just a leisurely ride it gets only 10%. I have complained to fitbit for about 5 years and they aren’t interested. I would get a different tracker if not for the fun of doing challenges with my friends and family who all use fitbit. 

[Bubaluke39]

Hey Bdabney,

     Sounds great looks like I am heading to Garmin. 

[Jtbuttercup]

I've only had my Versa 2 for a few days, and generally like it, but it was glitchy to set up.  As other commenters have said, it records walks/runs fine, but bike rides... I tried for the first time today, and I had the same experience as the prior posters have been having since 2018!?  Come on, Fitbit, I got this watch primarily for cycling, because I wanted something simpler than my Suunto, but the Suunto never fails to record my rides.