Wrist vs. Leg for Cycling

I just recently purchased an exercise bike that should arrive Monday, but I am curious as to whether or not you guys prefer to wear the tracker on your ankle for more steps to be counted or in your wrist for better HR tracking? Please let me know what works for you. Thanks in advance!

Replies

  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    Depends on your purpose for having it.

    If you are purely interested in steps as only purpose of device and don't care about calories - then ankle may lead to seeing impact from at least 1 leg going down for a partial impact.
    Depends on how smooth your pedaling is.
    Compared to wrist gripping handles likely seeing none.

    Then again, wear it on your body and potentially see impact of both legs, though still miss out on HR-based calorie burn estimate.

    Because estimate of calorie burn by distance seen on those step impacts is meaningless for bike riding.
  • CarolPre
    CarolPre Posts: 1,864 Member
    I put mine in my pocket when I ride my bike outside.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    Ya, mine attached to body saw lots more steps than the pedaling even had.
    With cadence on Garmin and ability to see how many pedal strokes there actually were, I determined the road roughness caused many more steps than pedaling did.

    If I'd been in any step contests that might have been useful.

    Calories from that were of course useless since the distance from the steps seen had no bearing on calories burned riding the bike some actual miles. Hence the Garmin.
  • I keep mine on my non-dominant ankle all the time. I feel like it's more accurate in strides, especially when I'm spinning. Furthermore, I haven't noticed a drastic change in caloric burn or heart rate since moving my Fitty. Hope this is useful! ^_^
  • desertdiva911
    desertdiva911 Posts: 7 Member
    I have an ankle strap that it (Versa) fits into so my cycling steps count as steps. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H2ML3CP/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
    Putting it in your pocket (depending on the type of pants/shorts you wear works nicely too.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    I have an ankle strap that it (Versa) fits into so my cycling steps count as steps. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H2ML3CP/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
    Putting it in your pocket (depending on the type of pants/shorts you wear works nicely too.

    I'd be very curious if you could take one of these cycling sessions and share the stats.
    How much time, how many steps, what distance, what calories.

    Are you able to get a HR reading from the device like others have using that strap?

    No one else has gotten back to me - I'm curious if the figures are as useful as mine were.