Bike rides with Zwift / Strava don't appear on Fitbit Dashboard

[GrosLapinou]

Hi there,

As a cyclist, I use a bike GPS unit and Zwift on my smart trainer. Both are feeding all my rides to Strava.

I enabled the Fitbit <-> Strava synchronisation and if I record a ride using the Exercise > Bike tool on the Inspire HR, it appears in Strava. But rides uploaded to Strava don't appear in the "Recent Exercise" section of the dashboard.

The GPS unit and smart trainer are more accurate, so would it be possible to use the information from Strava instead of recording it on the Inspire?

Moderator edit: Subject for clarity

[PenguinStar]

After a few months of this, here's my solution - and it's not great. I actually put my Fitbit Versa on my ankle because I was so frustrated that FitBit wasn't picking up the steps. I ride on Zwift which then pushes the ride to Strava. Fitbit picks up the activity as "aerobic workout" and then I manually change it to "spinning." Not great, but at least my steps are being counted now. I was very frustrated that I'd ride for an hour and would have virtually (pun intended) no steps. 

[BranLan]

I think I just found a solution that works for me, Strava pushes the ride to Fitbit, and I changed my "main goal" to active/zone time rather than steps, that way everything counts. Only using this for today but so far it seems like the only solution.

Also, not sure why Fitbit thinks I burned 1,200 calories on my ride when Strava reports I only burned 750, that doesn't make sense at all.

[Clark3y]

I enabled the integration between Fitbit and Strava (which is bidirectional i.e. 2-way). My problem is that my Zwift smart trainer rides, which are recorded into Strava without issue, don't reliably mirror into Fitbit - FYI this has worked on occasional. I recently removed the integration within Fitbit AND Strava and then re-enabled it, the Strava to Fitbit records synced once and then no more... Very annoying.

FYI if I record a non-virtual ride (i.e. not Zwift but actual outdoor ride using Wahoo Android app with GPS) it mirrors into Fitbit ok, therefore the issue seems to be with the Zwift-based Strava activities. It obviously can work, it's just unreliable for some reason...

Please help Fitbit!

[toddsdonald]

I've got same problem. In Zwift it shows I'm connected to Fitbit, in Strava it shows I'm connected to Fitbit. However in Fitbit it only shows strava as an active connection and it doesn't matter anyway because it doesn't update Fitbit app. I still need to enter my bike ride in Fitbit manually.

[Rich_Laue]

From Zwift's page 

As for Strava, only runs and bike rides that are recorded with gps get transferred. 

[toddsdonald]

Thanks Rich. Unfortunately I could never get the Fitbit bike ride recognition or GPS to work, although it's on. Since it's winter in in an indoor trainer, so I was hoping strava could upload rides to Fitbit.

[kdoobie]

• Any updates on this? Still can’t get my Zwift rides that are uploaded to Strava to show up on Fitbit. All licenses applied per this thread. Help.

[1GHX]

Upvote from me as well: I'm a brand new Fitbit customer and I usually do about 3 Zwift rides a week. So getting the Zwift rides into Fitbit is pretty essential for assessing my fitness / activities. I'm a bit disappointed to read this topic and find out this is near impossible (I am not planning to wear my fitbit charge 5 over my ankle) to make this work..

Also sports categories need a huge revision, both in English and in Dutch. In English, it would be nice to have "indoor cycling" instead of "spinning" as category in sports. In Dutch Fitbit there's only "cycling" ("fietsen" in Dutch) which is really different from "racing on a bike" ("racefietsen" in Dutch) and nearly every single Dutchman rides their bike every day as a way of transport, but not every Dutchman rides their bike for sports. I see all kind of crazy sports categories like "Water volleyball", "Barre Class", "Calisthenics" but worldwide popular sports like "indoor football" aka "futsal" are missing.

[Rich_Laue]

For fitbit rides, runs, walks to be sent to Strava, we need to have GPS to be enabled. 

Indoor stationary rides will be unable to use GPS, therefore stationary rides will not be sent to Strava. 

Fitbit is the manager of this interface. I have '2 brothers that ride with fitbits and I can follow their routes on Strava. 

Any updates on Zeift, must come from Zwift. Fitbit has nothing to do with the Zsift Sync. 

A quick google shoes that Zwift has only chose to sync data from fitbit scales. You may want to contact Zwift about this subject. 

I did notice that Zwift syncs to Map My Ride and I know that Fitbit syncs with Map my ride. Maybe this indirect method may work. 

Map my ride, walk, run, fitness, etc are all the same app under different names 

[Rich_Laue]

@1GHX by definition, Spinning is a stationary cycling. Yes I suppose Stationary bike could be used, but this term went out 20+ years ago, today the big thing is spinning classes. 

Idiot cycling would simply, by default have gps desabled since indoor cycling may or may not be stationary. I live by an indoor bike track. 

[t.parker]

@Rich_Laue nowadays, there is a new thing called "Virtual Ride" which is what Zwift, Rouvy or BKool are. You end up with GPS map and all metrics as if it was a real bike ride. Strava has "Virtual Ride" type, too. Tech went even further and now there is also Virtual Run. The difference between virtual ride and spinning is that you ride in virtual world which is defined with elevation, weather condition, surface types etc. Zwift will adjust resistance of smart bike or smart trainer accordingly. Spinning is in fact very oldschool name and on Fitbit it provides no metrics at all (no distance, speed, power, cadence) which makes it useless.

I sync my Zwift rides by using temporary Garmin account which sync with Zwift and then thirdparty app FitnessSyncer transfers data from Garmin into Fitbit as Bike (so I have at least distance and speed stored). But Fitbit needs to catch up if wants to be competitive in the sports tracking area. Virtual riding is a very powerful training tool for cyclists (especially off-season).

[Rich_Laue]

Then maybe add a suggestion. 

But for data to be sent to Strava, it needs to have GPS poonts

[1GHX]

After two weeks of trying, I've also tried the "Virtual Ride" method using 3rd party app syncers. However, the part of "Virtual Ride" I dislike (except for the workaround using 3rd party syncers, which don't have the right timing somehow) is that you get a icon of walking person. 🤔

[t.parker]

@Rich_Laue virtual rides have GPS points and a lot more. In terms of data they are no different from real rides. Just example of Zwift ride synced to my Garmin account:

You see, there is a map, speed, power, elevation, cadence, HR and if it's structured workout, there isna breakdown of intervals. Currently, the only way I can sync Zwift to Fitbit is by using FitnessSyncer. Then, I just get Bike with speed, HR (if I tracked HR with Fitbit during the ride simultaneosly), calories and AZM. There's no map though. It's kind of ironic I need to use competitor's software to get my virtual rides synced with Fitbit account. This shows however that Spin exercise on Fitbit platform falls very behind. I don't expect you to know this as I believe you're not into sports but Fitbit should know that time is moving really fast and who's not catching up stays behind (like in group rides in Zwift 😀).

About feature suggestions, I did it a few times and always ended up edited by moderators into something different and unrelated. Waste of time.

[1GHX]

The problem is:

- if Zwift uploads the activity automatically to Strava or Garmin Connect, the synchronizing services won't pick up from your Garmin or Strava account.

The workaround is:

- Manually upload your Zwift activity to Strava and/or Garmin Connect.

- As soon you upload it manually (instead of automatically), 3rd party sync services like "FitnessSyncer for Android" will pick up on the activity and display it within 24 hours in Fitbit.

Cons:

- You need to log in, then click "add activity" on Garmin or Strava; then select the Zwift activity from your Documents / Zwift / Activity folder.

- There is a lot of delay before it shows on Fitbit

- In the end, I have studied the Fitbit API and how the apps communicate, and if I'm not mistaken, they still take most data from Fitbit, not from your Zwift activity. Fitbit only takes very basic things from Zwift/Strava/Garmin activities like distance, speed, duration, etc. Your heartrate for example will not be read from a Zwift/Strava activity, but is coming from your Fitbit heartrate recording by the 'activity start' and duration.

So in the end I have realized: as long it's really basic stuff Fitbit is able to process, it makes the most sense, simply set the "spinning" (for stationary indoor cycling, without GPS) and "cycling" (outdoor, with GPS) as shortcut on your Fitbit smartwatch/tracker. And manual start recording at the start of each activity and stop recording at the end of each activity. Only this way, you will have the perfect activity duration (better than if you automate it from Strava or Zwift activities).

Now, if only we would get the "Virtual Ride" as quick selection and get a cycling icon with it, that's probably the best we can get until the API/backend gets upgraded.

[t.parker]

@1GHX with FitnessSyncer I get icon of bike (it's synced as Bike activity). Example:

This was Zwift structured workout synced first to GarminConnect and then to Fitbit. There is a delay (sometimes it may take quite a while to get it synced). There is a reason to that - services limit reads/writes per client to avoid flood requests.

One hint about HR. Track workout or spin in the same time to force more frequent HR measurement. Otherwise, imported activity won't have HR. Later, just delete the spin so you don't have duplicates.

Edit: I use web FitnessSyncer. Android app sucks. If you want more frequent updates (on demand) you need to get license.

[1GHX]

Yes, T.parker, you are right. This has nothing to do with GPS points. It has to do with the way a Zwift activity is loaded into Strava or Garmin. Read my above post; it's easy to prove this, by removing a Zwift activity from Strava then uploading the exact same .fit file again, and it will appear on 3rd party apps.

However, it's good to realize that, because of the way Fitbit is built, not a lot is gained by connecting Zwift to Fitbit. 

[1GHX]

Actually; I was now talking about: after you record your manual 'spinning' activity on Fitbit, you can change the name to "Virtual Ride" but Fitbit will show a walking icon. So this is while not using any 3rd party apps

[t.parker]

@1GHX interesting. I never upload Zwift activities manually and the current toolchain works just fine 🤔 but I have licensed FitnessSyncer (I sync more services together and need on-demand sync). Maybe this makes a difference.