Biking and/or Running - Fitness level

[Snoke]

I have a couple of questions and looking for your help/comments.

I bike and just recently got a band, so I don't have a fitness level rating yet.
My bike is for road and that's what I have been riding. How do people with two bike types handle the band and data collection for your fitness rating. What I mean is if I went out on a mountain bike on the trails, my speed will be much less than when on the road. Since you can only tell it your biking you will look to be struggling on the trails when in fact you maybe riding just fine at a good pace.

I don't run but plan to start, but I will more often use my inline skates. Since I can only tell the band I am running or biking in order to log distance and speed with the GPS. I would select run I guess. This will then have the same issues as described above with the bikes. When I select run and go out using my skates, I will have a much better speed than when I run with my shoes. This too I would imagine would effect my fitness rating with the band.

Any ideas as to how best use the band and data collection for the above activities and still get a fair fitness level
estimate ?

Thanks in advance

 

[gadgetrants]

This is a great question! I wish I knew the answer -- I'm batting the same concern with runs vs. walks. As of now I don't see any meaningful solution. Your options are pretty ugly...here are two: first, you can export your data, and sub-divide runs and bike rides into their respective versions (trail vs. road, foot vs. skate). You could then do some basic analytics on your own, but what a headache. The second option is to have your data automatically sync to a service like mapmyrun, which will allow you to label each workout as you see fit. It basically takes the GPS and HR data and you provide the category. Of course then, you also lose the built-in analytics that are available on the Dashboard.

Bottom line, if MS offered a feature where, for example, you created a simple speed-threshold rule, you could say: anything under a 6-min mile is in-line skating and anything slower is running. It would make life so simple.

-Matt

 

[anon(8555314)]

Since the full SDK was just made available a couple of weeks ago, I am anticipating that we will start seeing more 3rd party apps in the very near future for activities such as inline skating, mountain biking, walking, hiking, pogo stick hopping, hoola hooping, etc.

 

[Nate Silver]

For cycling, I guess the only way you could distinguish the different types would be to name the activities, which you can do once the ride is recorded; i.e. 'Road cycling', 'Mtn. Bike', 'Spinning', whatever. Sure, your splits will look different, but fitness-wise, its the duration and HR that really matter, speed and distance (though nice to know) is sort of irrelevant unless you're racing.......and then I'd think you'd be using more of a Multi-Sports Watch sort of device anyway. Of course cadence is important, but the Band doesn't do anything for you there anyway.

For inline skating, I think you're just going to have to play around with it and see what works best. Not sure what the skating motion is going to give you for stats in 'run' mode, it'll probably look pretty weird......you're gonna look great on pace! :smile: There again, about all you can do is name the activity 'skate' (or whatever you like), and let it fly. I'd try it in run mode, and also try it in 'exercise' mode and see what makes the most sense. Of course in exercise mode you're going to lose gps and distance data. And yes, as Matt pointed out, you can always export to something like Endomondo, which gives you more flexibility. Hopefully we'll see some 3rd party apps come online to better track different activities.

So yeah, will it look "fair"? I guess not really, but as long as you don't go around telling people your'e running 3 minute miles........:winktongue:

 

[gadgetrants]

Nate, great advice -- you reminded me: how dumb that we rename our workouts on the phone, and the updated names don't propagate up to the Dashboard. Here's to hoping that future updates make organizing our particular activities more intuitive and flexible!

​-Matt

 

[NinerJet9]

Prior to using the MSB, I was using a Hr monitor and Strava in my phone. Strava always gives me a bigger cal burn for my road rides over my mtb rides. I think it's based on distance, hr and elevation. I think the MSB is is distance and HR alone (pure speculation). Either way, I have yet to come across a perfect solution.

 

[Snoke]

Hi Nate, thanks for your response. I know I can name my rides, which is fine. My OP wasn't for my own data interpretation, but for MSB and its calculation of your VO2 max fitness level.