How to Print Your Strava Map — One Tap, or a GPX File

The one-tap way

1. Open the Studio and press Connect with Strava. Strava asks you to allow access to your activities; nothing is posted back to Strava, ever.
2. Pick the activity, or a range of them. One race makes the Marathon Print; a year makes a heatmap or a Year in Motion; a set of climbs makes the elevation styles.
3. Choose a style from the 23. Every one is drawn live from the same data, so switching costs nothing.
4. Move, size or recolour the parts if you want to. The route, the map and the words each take a colour of their own.
5. Order it framed or unframed. The print file is made from what you see, at print resolution, and posted tracked.

Your GPS track is read in your browser and stays there. When you order, the finished print file and a one-line summary (name, date, distance) come to us so we can make it; the track itself never does.

The GPX way

If you record on a Garmin, Coros, Wahoo or a phone app and do not use Strava, export the activity as a GPX file and drop it into the Studio. Garmin Connect exports from the activity's menu; most apps have Export GPX in the same place. Everything after that is the same.

What to check before you order anywhere

• Is the route on a map, or floating? A line on plain paper looks fine for a race you know; for a city you visited once, the streets are what make it a place.
• Is the line the course, or the GPS? Watches wander under bridges and between tall buildings. We pull the run onto the streets, and draw the official course for the marathons we have mapped.
• What resolution is the file? Ask. A print from a screenshot looks like a screenshot. Ours is a vector drawing rasterised at 300 dpi for the size you order.
• Is it a proof by email, or on the page? Most services take an upload and send a proof in a day or two. Ours is on the page in a minute, because nobody is designing it by hand.
• What paper? 200 gsm enhanced matte fine-art paper is the standard for giclée prints; card stock is not.

What the other services do

Most Strava print shops work from an upload: you send the file or a screenshot, a designer lays it out in a fixed style, and a proof comes by email. They start around £15 unframed on Not On The High Street and Etsy, and the framed versions from about £40. That is a fair way to get a print if you want a person to arrange it and are not in a hurry. Ours is the other way round: you arrange it, live, in any of 23 styles, and the race is recognised from the run. The comparison page names the services and the prices we found.