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What your file carries

A print can hold nineteen numbers. How many of them yours actually holds was decided months ago, by the watch on your wrist and whether you bothered with a strap that morning — not by anything you pick here.

That is not a limitation we are apologising for. It is the whole basis of the product: we print what was measured, and we leave the rest blank rather than filling it in. A number on a wall is a claim, and it should be one you can defend to anyone standing in front of it.

So here is the map — what each way in gives us, what it does not, and what that means for the sheet. It is a map of the formats, not a guess about you: what your own file holds is something only your file knows.

What each source carries

Twenty numbers can go on a print. How many actually can is decided by what you walk in the door with — not by what you pick in the configurator. This is the map.

Always in the file    Only if you had the sensor    Not in this format

Where it comes from Sport Time & pace Elevation Heart rate Power Cadence Steps Its own totals On the sheet
Stravaconnected account Strava's own totals
FITwatch, bike computer, Strava archive The device's own totals
GPXexported from your own activity Route, time, pace
GPXa route you downloaded 4 of 20
TCXGarmin Connect and others The device's own totals
Strava · connected account
The only door where the numbers on the print are the numbers in the app, because we read Strava's own summary rather than the device's. The two do not always agree, and neither is wrong — they count slightly different things, so a watch and the app can report different averages for the same ride. Power counts only when it came from a real power meter; an estimate that looks measured is worse than no number at all.
FIT · watch, bike computer, Strava archive
The richest file there is. Sport, distance, time and elevation are in essentially every one, because the watch records them whether you asked it to or not. Heart rate, power and cadence are a different matter: they are in the file if the sensor was on you that day, and absent if it was not. That is your kit, not the format.
GPX · exported from your own activity
Heart rate and cadence travel along in the file's extensions when they were recorded; power does not, whatever the meter cost. GPX has no room for a summary at all — it is a list of points and nothing else — so distance, elapsed time and climb are worked out from the points themselves.
GPX · a route you downloaded
A route someone published is a shape, not an effort. One real file: 4,239 points, 4,239 elevations, zero timestamps. You get distance, climb, descent and the coordinates. Type in your own time and the sheet opens up to six — elapsed and average pace appear, and the pace is in the unit your sport uses.
TCX · Garmin Connect and others
The only text format that carries the device's own accounting — distance, calories, peak and average heart rate, and power where a meter was fitted — alongside the per-point detail a rich GPX has. If your platform offers both, TCX and FIT come out the same on the sheet.

Getting the file out

Every platform hands your own activity back to you. Here is where the button sits, and what comes with it.

  • Garmin

    FIT or TCX

    Garmin Connect, open the activity, the gear icon top right, Export. Either format carries the whole ride.

  • Wahoo

    FIT

    The ELEMNT app keeps a FIT for every ride under the activity, ready to share.

  • Coros, Polar, Suunto

    FIT, TCX or GPX

    All three export from the activity page in their own app. Take FIT or TCX over GPX when you are offered the choice.

  • Apple Watch

    GPX

    Apple ships no export of its own. HealthFit, WorkOutDoors and RunGap all write one, and heart rate rides along if the watch recorded it.

  • Phone apps

    GPX

    Runkeeper, Nike Run Club, adidas Running and the rest export GPX. Expect the route and the time, rarely more.

  • Strava

    connect, or Export GPX

    Connecting the account is the better door: you pick from a list and get Strava's own numbers. Exporting gives you the original file the device wrote.

  • Treadmill and trainer

    no route

    A session recorded without GPS has no line to draw. We say so at the door rather than printing a dot. The Data prints are drawn from a whole account instead, and they do not need a route.

This table is about the formats, not about you. A filled circle means the format carries it and the device writes it; a hollow one means it is there if the sensor was. Whether you had the sensor that day is the one thing we cannot see from here. If something on this page stops being true, that is a bug, and we would like to hear about it. Steps are the narrowest column here: only a FIT file from a watch carries them, and only for a run, a walk or a hike — a bike records pedal turns, which is a different thing. A connected Strava account cannot give us steps at all, even when the Strava website shows a number for the same activity.

The file decides, not the checkbox

We print what was measured. Nothing else.

Four rules we hold to

1. The source's own number wins. If your file states a climb, we print that. If it does not, we work one out — and that fallback was calibrated against real recorded activities rather than guessed at. Never the other way round.

2. An estimate has to look like one. A tilde in front of a wattage means the platform guessed it. Heart rate zones are marked when your maximum came from your age rather than from a measurement. A number without a mark was measured.

3. You may fill a hole, never overwrite a reading. The field for typing your own time appears only when the file has none. A field that was always there would invite you to replace a measurement, and then neither of us knows what the sheet is claiming.

4. Empty beats invented. A cell with nothing in it is a valid state. 0 HM reads as a measurement of nothing, which is a different and worse thing than silence.

The awkward questions

Why does my watch say a different climb than Strava?

Because they are measuring different things. Your watch has a barometer and reads the air; Strava throws away the barometer and looks your coordinates up in a terrain model. On one 222 km ride the file says 1,271 m and Strava says 276.

We print the number from the source you brought. Connect Strava and you get Strava's; upload the watch file and you get the watch's. What we will not do is quietly compute a third one.

My file has no time in it. Is it useless?

No. A downloaded route still has distance, climb and descent, and those are four of the nineteen numbers on their own.

If you know what you ran it in, there is a field for it, and it appears only for files that have no time of their own. Typing 2:14:30 opens up elapsed time and average pace, in your sport's own unit. Moving time stays empty, because nobody can know that from a route.

Do I need a heart rate strap for this to be worth it?

No. If you wore one, the number is in the file and it goes on the print. If you did not, that cell stays empty and nothing else about the sheet changes.

Pick fewer stats and the ones you have get more room. A sheet with four numbers on it is not a lesser print — it is often the better one.

Which format should I pick when offered several?

FIT or TCX. Both carry the device's own totals, and those beat anything we can work out from the shape of the line.

GPX is perfectly good and it is the format everything can produce — it just has no room for a summary, so we do the arithmetic instead. Whichever you choose, the file is read in your browser and never reaches us.