Make it possible to track walking as well

This has been requested a number of times.

One problem I’m coming across in planning this is how to organize/display the different types of activities within the site … Should they all appear the same, should they be completely separate, should you be able to switch between different layers on a map, etc.?

There’s also a question of how the different activity types should play a part in the percentage complete display (50% done overall with 40% done by running and 10% done by biking, for example) as well as the leaderboard & city/street rankings.

Here’s an ongoing list of questions surrounding how this feature gets implemented:

  • Is it ok for all activities (running & walking) to be displayed in your map view, or do they need to be split out?
  • Should the Leaderboard split walking/running?
  • Should a city’s (e.g. Boston) member list be split between Walkers and Runners?
  • Should a member’s map view display walking/running activities differently?

This would be nice!

IMO separated display for different activities is the best, maybe rankings also separated: best runner, best cycler…

Congrats for your job!

If possible to easily see how much has been done by walking or running that would be amazing (your 50, 40 10% example).

As for being separate I don’t think that would be necessary, if all the lines are purple in a city then it is less messy to see which streets you haven’t run yet. If you have the time and energy to make it as separate layers that could be looked into that would be a huge plus, but don’t think that is necessary.

I too would like to see the ability for classifying different activities. Although the site was set up for runners, some folks are getting biking data entered as well, which hides the results of the leader board since bikers are typically faster, and go longer. I would prefer a separate map if possible, or ideally a filter feature that would allow users to screen the Map View by Activity type and Date Range.

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My take is running, hiking, walking should all be logged together as a pedestrian type of activity; cycling and other assisted activities I feel like should be a separate feature addition with more work associated with additional design and UX considerations. Would love to have the walking now and someday maybe cycling.

I agree with the others who have said to please just keep it simple and combine the data. Make this an option to also collect walking and other data in our profiles that is off by default (since this data is not integrated today). For those of us who’d like to get this additional data, we can turn the feature on.

Maybe in a future version if this is popular, and if you have the time, you can enhance the site to separate the data. But I don’t think you need to start there. If others don’t like the simple approach, they simply should not turn the feature on at this time.

Thanks for all you do for this community!

I have to agree with some of the other users. Walking/running/hiking should be collected together. May times I will log a “running” activity with Runkeeper and I will walk some of it. I think it would be fine to collect them together.

If you wanted to break it out a little, maybe give users an option to include walking/hiking as an option.

As for cycling I think they should be separate. When you slow down on your bike you don’t suddenly start walking.

Alright! Here it is!

Walking & Hiking activities are now being synced into CityStrides!!

I’m expecting there are going to be a lot of activities to sync in, so please be patient. It may take a while to get everything copied in and the maps/progress updated, etc.

For now, there is no visual distinction between walking & running. In the future, I think I’ll add a little indicator & the ability to split the map view (just running, just walking). In the meantime, I’m just going to let everyone use it. Please report back if you see something that can be added/updated.

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I went looking for threads on this as I figured it must’ve been suggested already. :slight_smile:

FWIW, I’d still love to see cycling imported as well, though the implementation might be more complicated: I’d want to see both my on-foot and on-bike activities on one map (the “where have I been?”-map), but also be able to split them out, and for the purposes of Leaderboards I think the categories should be separate.

My $0.02. (Or actually $21 just donated. :slight_smile: )

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Thanks for supporting the site!

There’s also this single-post thread on the idea of cycling: Have a city pedal/bike site
It’s something I’ve been thinking about, but I don’t want cycling to clobber any kind of ‘competitions’ that might be going on with runners/walkers on the site. It’s a whole other game once you add a bike :slight_smile:

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