Cycling activity

I would like for Cycling to be included in the activities that can be logged as Hiking is.
Consider that there are cycling activities in both Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. For the cycling merit badge you have to complete two 10 mile rides, two 25-mile rides and a 50 Mile ride. It would be a great way to keep track of the cycling riding requirements at a troop level. In our district we lead the scouts who have qualified on a 100 mile ride.
Even at our Cub Scout level we are teaching kids to ride and then leading them on 5 & 10 mile rides.

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Hi, Jonathan,

There have been various expansions to the logs requested, including I believe cycling. No timeline for making the modifications has been published, that I have seen. I agree that it would be helpful to have cycling, paddling, sailing and a wide variety of other logs set up. It’s just not clear how high on the priority list the BSA is putting these enhancements.

That said, one potential work-around at the troop level would be for the scouts to start the Cycling MB (or for a unit leader to use the Feature Assistant Extension in combination with the Quick Entry tool to bulk-start the MB) and log the rides in the comments sections. The scouts can then mark the relevant requirements “complete” as they complete the various rides, which will flag them for adult leader review. The scouts could potentially use the comments section at the top level of the MB to track all of their rides in a single place, which might make it easier for the adult leaders to cross-check their progress.

We do not know when the Logs are going to be worked on.

In the meantime, you have a couple options:

  1. As Charley suggested, you can use the “Notepad & Comments” at the bottom of the Cycling merit badge or you can click on the individual requirement and use “Notepad & Comments” there.

  2. Use the Hiking Log and add [Cycling] at the beginning of the “Location / Trail:” field. You can also add number of miles and cumulative miles. It could look something like this:

[Cycling] Name of Cycling trail / route [miles=5, cumulative Cycling miles=20]

If you do not want the number of Hiking miles to be affected, then you can put in “Miles:” = 0.

You can export the Hiking Log to a csv file and sort it so that all of the [Cycling] is sorted together.

First, Thanks for the update and suggestions.
In relation to your comment about modifications, is there a list of modifications that are in development to be published?

Unfortunately, BSA IT has not posted a list for public consumption. What I know about what’s in process is what I’ve seen from the Scoutbook User Advisory Council (SUAC volunteers) while reading the forums. They can only release information as approved by BSA IT, which doesn’t include a development list or timeline.

Jennifer,
Thanks for the suggestions: I like the idea of putting in 0 miles so it the hiking miles remain current, yet it allows probably the best work around within the current system.
Thanks

With so many logs it may become cumbersome to track them all individually. Would we be better off with a single log and at the end of the entry you select the activity from a drop box? With this method you could then easily generate a view of a particular activity (or all) from a selection box. You could still add a “units” box for nights, miles, hours, etc. so you could still total them up as well if a filter is applied for a particular type. Management would be easier because now instead of creating and managing separate logs you’re only managing categories which would also allow the support team to be much more responsive to new things which have to be logged and tracked as programs evolve. Just my $.02

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