Differences between Run and Trail Run (and Bike and MTB) activities?

I know Trail Run and MTB do not count towards VO2 max but is there any other difference between these and the Run and Bike activities?

I live in the mountains and do mostly trail running and mountain biking and wondering whether there’s any downside to just logging those as Run and Bike, respectively, so that I can track VO2 max trend

0 mcalista over 5 years ago

I think MTB does count towards VO2Max - if you have a power meter.

The MTB activity will log the Grit and Flow metrics that Cycling does not.

Running on an uneven surface as you would get on a trail will have you working harder than the same pace on a smooth surface. This will lead to inaccurate VO2Max estimates. Which is probably worse than no estimate. VO2Max changes only slowly - 1 "Run" per week (or 2 weeks) on a smooth surface is probably all you need to track the trend.

0 Crispin_Ellisdon over 5 years ago

acousticbiker said:
MTB do not count towards VO2 max

I don’t think this is true for MTB (it is for trail run), as VO2 Max cycling is based on power (you can get a value indoors, even if there is no speed or distance measure). So if your MTB has a power meter, you should get VO2.

Other things. MTB and Trail Run disable the incident detection, due to the high chance of a false trigger in those activities. MTB now has MTB dynamics (Grit and Flow, but not jump dynamics yet). The default navigation routing settings in the MTB and Trail run apps are more appropriate to the respective sports. Other default data screens and settings are focused to trail rather than road (of course you can easily adjust those to suit in the base Run and a Bike apps).