Google Maps to Strava

Route or activity: the difference that matters

This is the distinction to get straight first, because it decides what you should do with the file at all.

A Strava activity is a ride or run you actually did: it lands in your feed, counts towards your totals, and gets matched against segments. A route is a planned line, meant to be followed later, that counts towards nothing until you've actually ridden it.

Strava's file upload is built for the first case. Uploading the GPX of a route you've merely planned therefore creates an activity, that is, a ride you never did, with the mileage attached. Strava routes, by contrast, are drawn in Strava's own route planner, not imported from a file.

What to do with the file instead

If what you want is to navigate the route you planned in Google Maps, the GPX you download here is useful, just not inside Strava: load it onto the device or app that will actually guide you, such as a Wahoo computer, a Garmin device or Komoot. Most of those push the finished activity back to Strava automatically afterwards, which gets you the result you wanted the right way round: a real recording.

If what you want is to share the line with others on Strava, rebuild it in Strava's route planner using the GPX as a visual reference, for instance opened alongside in the GPX viewer.

Common issues

An activity created from a planned route has no real duration, speed or heart rate: the GPX generated here describes a line, not a timed effort. Strava will show an activity with missing data, which is one more reason not to take that path for what is only a ride you're planning.

If you've already uploaded a planned route by mistake, delete the activity in Strava: otherwise it keeps counting towards your totals and your segment standings.