Strava segments cannot be exported: three ways to get the GPX anyway

A segment is a stretch of road or trail that Strava times you on. It has a page, a leaderboard and a map — and no export button. Strava does not document a way to download a segment as a file, and the forum requests for one go back years. The line still exists in three places you can reach.

1. It is inside your activity

Every time you ride or run the segment, the activity you upload contains it. Open the activity on strava.com, use the more menu and Export GPX (or Export Original). That file has the segment in it, along with everything before and after.

To print just the segment, trim the file to the segment's start and end with a GPX editor, then drop the trimmed file in the configurator. The line and the numbers will be the segment's own: its distance, its elevation, the time you actually took. That is the honest version — a recording, not a plan.

2. Draw a route over it

If you have not ridden it, or want the clean line without a ride's wobble at either end, make it a route. In My Routes → Create New Route draw along the segment's road (creating routes is a subscription feature), save it, then use the route page's download arrow to export GPX or TCX. The route export guide has the steps.

You get the shape and nothing else — no time, no pace — because a route has no recording behind it. For a print of a climb you intend to do, that is exactly right.

3. Send it to the device instead

If the goal is to have the segment on a Garmin rather than in a file, you do not need the file. Star the segment on Strava; with a subscription, starred segments show up on compatible Garmin devices as Live Segments, and the device tells you when you enter one. Strava has a support article on Strava Live Segments on Garmin Devices that covers which devices and how to link the accounts.

That is a device feature, not an export, and it does not give you a GPX. But it is what most people who search for "segment to Garmin" actually want.

Why there is no button

A segment is not a recording. It is a definition — a start point, an end point and a line matched against everyone's activities. Strava exports recordings; it does not export definitions, and the two are stored differently. The activity export gives you the recording that matched; the route builder lets you make a new definition of your own. Between the two you can get the line any way you need it, just not in one click.

Which one for a print

For a climb you have done: method 1, so the numbers are real. For a climb you are training for: method 2, and print the plan. Either way it is one line on paper — see what a climb needs before choosing the format.