Making a Fitbit Record Bicycling Steps and Heart Rate

I find my Fitbit Charge 2 very helpful for keeping track of walking steps and sleep and heart rate. However, it did NOT record my pedal rotations on bike rides. When your Fitbitted wrist is stationarily holding onto the handlebar, not moving, you can see why.

What to do? Various Fitbit community threads like this one tried to offer answers, such as take it off your wrist and put it in your hip pocket. But that means it misses your heart rate and loses out on tracking aerobic activity.

What if I could put it on my ankle or lower calf under the sock? The part of me that moves with each pedal revolution. The calf and ankle are much larger diameter than the wrist though.

I happened to have replaced the watch band for this fit bit charge 2 before and retained the side with the buckle, this piece:

I had seen airlines accommodate very large passengers with a seat belt extender like this:

Why not fashion such an extender with the extra band/buckle part allowing me to extend the band on the fit bit like so:

and then fit the expanded band fitbit onto my lower calf above the ankle like so:

It worked! It now records both heart rate and each pedal rotation as a step.

You can make one too!