Add more support for multisport activities: for example triathlon

[dsm1891]

Hey,

Strava has always traditionally been focused on Cyclists, but more and more features are coming out for additional sports. I would like Strava to better support Multi sport, in both activities and athletes stats/data.

I would love to see is being able to unify/upload multiple activities that were related to each other e.g. a Triathlon. The user experience is always quite clunky, and its hard to view as a single effort/activity when looking at past activities.

Ideally this would be a single activity with different sections per sport and includes transition period. 

This would greatly improve the experience to both the user and their followers. For example the user will be able to differentiate between a 10k run and a 10k run they did at the end of a triathlon. It gives much more context into the athletes effort and doesn't treat single sport activities the same as multi sport

It will benefit their followers as it will reduce the amount of activities displayed on the feed (e.g. if they do lots of swim/run/swim/run/swim/run training). 

Look forward to hearing from you

[eric]

I very much like this idea and gave it a thumbs up. As an example, here is a recent activity of mine:

https://www.strava.com/activities/7512801692  

It was SUP-run-swim-run-swim-run-swim-run-swim-run-swim-run-swim-run-swim-run.

I categorized the entire thing as a run, because it would have been ridiculous to break it into 16 activities. And it would be really cool if there was a way to show those splits within a single activity.

[Ronald]

display all the sports as one continuous activity instead of 5 separated ones at the moment (Swim, transition 1, bike, transition 2, run). See pic of what Garmin is doing, that way of displaying is fine for me.

[eric]

Since this is a feature suggestion, what exactly are you looking for? Basically for triathlon to be displayed as one continuous activity? 

[Ronald]

Yes, exactly, displaying all the sports as one continuous activity instead of 5 seperated one at the moment (Swin, transition 1, bike, transition 2, run). See pic of what Garmin is doing, that's way of displaying is fine for me.

[usr]

A single activity that is truly multi-sport down to the device sync would have to be built on top of device manufacturer implementation and would be bound to the limits of what they do. In theory the .fit file format does support multi-sports activities, but how much of that is usable in reality depends a lot on device manufacturer implementations and the like. Multi-sports support just from the app would be even more niche, because recording in the is niche (I certainly don't have any numbers, but I assume that the drama around bluetooth withdrawal/reintroduction wouldn't have happened if numbers were huge)

But a minimal remedy to the separate activities problem is what I suggested in Previous/next link in activities: simply link all activities in chronological order. This certainly would not be the full solution ("10k run vs 10k run at the end of a triathlon") but the prev/next feature could serve as a gentle implementation ramp to improve on: add an option to highlight that link, and/or add an option to extend that into "present as one" (perhaps reusing some of the group activity UI concepts?). Add autodetection defaults from device sync, or from adjacency in time, or from proximity in space ("auto-connect if distance a.start->a.end + b.start->b.end is much bigger than a.end->b.start"). The list goes on and on.

If it's built bottom-up, from separate activities presented as one, there is compatibility (what if a triathlete thinks a few seconds for dropping/picking up the watch in the transition zone are worth the aerodynamics advantage of not wearing a watch on the bike?), there is fixability (accidentally recorded the ride from hotel to race as a multi-fit? No problem, just unlink).

And having multi sports support implemented bottom-up would even serve as a remedy to the old "Garmin battery died, continued on the phone" activity. (ironically, with battery runtimes getting better and better I expect this to happen more frequently, because with the runtime seen in e.g. the 1040 Solar people simply lose their charging routine) 

[eric]

@usr there are several device makers that have "triathlon" functions built-in, so in that sense its doable, but I don't think this necessarily has to be down to the device-synch level. 

I envision it as being a feature in strava where you can go into your individual activity and then easily break it into the various "legs". You could do this perhaps by clicking on a map where the transition takes place, or on a time-based timeline. Similar functionality to strava's interface for creating new segments in the web-based tool. 

[OlivierDupre]

I would be a bit less specific than just triathlon.
Run&Bike and SwimRun should also be available in Strava as one single activity.

And for those, there are much more transitions and activities. I had 32 entries in Strava yesterday... For a single multi-sports activity!

[dsm1891]

I have to agree with Eric, for example Wahoo rival have a nice multi sport implementation; which inspired this post, if i'm honest. Within the Wahoo app you can set up multisport profiles, and before uploading to services (such as Strava) you can adjust which part of the activity was which sport.

As for the UI/UX of how Strava should handle it, I'm sure they have their own experts which can make a better UX than I can. But I think it would be wise if the user can group individually uploaded activities as a multi sport. I would also like to see one activity as a multisport activity, with that activity containing different sections for each recording. I do not think these two goals need to be mutually exclusive.


Devices are already supporting multisport activity uploads. Whether Strava adopts their implementations, or Strava sets a standard for others to follow isn't up to me, I just think Strava will be more valuable with the support.

[BenMcdrury]

Hey hey! Hope all is well. I went on a mission today where I biked to a mountain, stashed my bike at the bottom and ran up the mountain, grabbed my bike at the bottom and the biked home. 
currently I have to record three seperate activities for this. 
1 - being the bike over, 2 - being the run up, and 3 being the bike back.

i was wondering if it was possible to form a way to perhaps “change workout” part way through a recording so that rather than three seperate activities, it’s counted as one long continuous activity involving a bike a run and a bike?

[Keeks]

This is a feature that has been requested for YEARS and YEARs.......on the old community it had pages and pages of request tracking back to nearly when Strava first went live.

Now all trackers have some form of multipsport feature - where they will record different activity types within one activity, usually swapping the activity type with the press of a button i.e lap button.

I know on Garmin you can change the activity type in the middle of an activity and it will track it as such from that point. When it uploads to Garmin connect it uploads as one activity and shows the different activity's.

I assume this is the same on other watches.

Take the classic mulitsport of Triathlon (Swim - Bike - Run) 

Garmin will upload this as one activity and I can see when My Swim Starts/Finishes, same with Bike and Run and I will get stats for each separate discipline. 

What Strava does it on upload of the activity, is split the disciplines into separate activities and just post 3 different activities. If you include transition, just get these short little activities which serve no purpose in your feed.

Now what some people do in order to track this a one activity is just record the whole activity as one activity i.e a Run seems to be popular.

now have a guess what happens when you do this........ruin segments times. you suddenly start to see Run Segments recorded begin broken, simply because they are be uploaded whole activity as a run, which include a Bike leg and suddenly these people are suddenly recording faster run times that Eliud Kipchoge .

[Keeks]

Similar request here

https://communityhub.strava.com/t5/feature-suggestions/we-want-triathlon/idi-p/1058

[lunarain]

Triathlon or Multisport as grouped activity please. It's so annoying.

[no]

hello,

some people have there record for strava on usual distance (10k, marathon) on bike & run. they can't do theses times with running only, for example https://www.strava.com/activities/5946852743/overview

so, it would be great to add "bike & run" in the activity list so theses activities doesn't count for user's running PR.

thanks

[Jane]

Hello,

Thanks for your post.  This sounds like a scenario where you would want to use our activity flag tool.

In cases where you notice invalid data on segment leaderboards, you can flag the activity in question which will remove it from leaderboards.  Invalid data can appear for a number of reasons, including the case where a Strava Athlete has categorized ride activity as a run.   

As you've pointed out, we don't currently support multi-sport activities on Strava, but we do have an existing idea submission for that very thing here.  Please feel free to vote on that idea and add any comments or thoughts you have.