The Strava art guide
Strava art is a picture you draw by running, cycling or walking a planned route while your GPS records it. Upload the activity to Strava and the line on the map shows your drawing: a heart, a cat, a word, anything you can trace through the streets. It is also called GPS art or GPS drawing.
How to
From idea to finished drawing on your Strava feed, usually in one evening of planning with our Strava art generator.
Start simple: a heart, a star or a letter. Draw it freehand, pick one of hundreds of ready shapes, describe it to the AI Doodle generator, or upload a photo and let auto-trace turn it into a line.
Move, scale and rotate the shape over your area. Street grids give you clean straight lines, winding suburbs and parks are better for curves. Bigger is easier, because small details get lost in GPS noise.
RouteSketcher pulls the drawing onto streets and paths you can actually run or ride, and shows the snapped distance so you know what you are signing up for.
Download the route as a GPX file and load it into Garmin Connect, Komoot, Strava, Coros, Suunto, Wahoo or Google Maps, then follow it on your watch or phone.
Record the activity as usual. When it lands on Strava, the drawing shows up on your map. Give it a good title, that is half the fun.
Tips
A GPS track wanders by a few meters, so tiny details blur into a scribble. Give the shape enough room for the streets to carry its eyes, ears and corners.
Letters, pixel art and anything with straight edges love a street grid. Animals and curvy shapes fit better where the roads bend.
Running back over the same street is invisible on the map, so use it to get from one part of the drawing to the next without leaving a mark.
Pause the recording, move to the next point and resume: the track joins the two points with a straight line. Handy for eyes and other details that do not touch the outline.
Strava can hide the start and end of activities near places like your home. If your drawing starts there, part of it gets cut off, so start a little away or review your map visibility settings.
Stick to public roads and paths, follow traffic rules and look up from your watch at crossings. The art can wait.
Ideas
Stuck? Describe any idea to the AI Doodle generator and it draws the shape for you, ready to place on your city.
History
People drew with GPS long before Strava existed. Once civilian GPS became accurate in 2000, artists started walking and driving routes that traced pictures. Strava, launched in 2009, made it social: suddenly every run and ride had a map that friends would see.
Canadian cyclist Stephen Lund, often called the father of Strava art, opened 2015 by riding "Happy 2015" across Victoria, British Columbia, and has drawn hundreds of pieces since. In San Francisco, runner Lenny Maughan ran a 28.9 mile portrait of Frida Kahlo through the city streets. And in 2018 more than 150 cyclists rode the Lion's Footprint, a 1,932 km two-tailed lion drawn across the Czech Republic for the 100th anniversary of Czechoslovakia.
Want more inspiration? The strav.art gallery has collected more than 3,000 pieces from around the world, sorted by theme.
FAQ
Strava art is a drawing made from a GPS-recorded run, ride or walk. You plan a route shaped like a picture, follow it while your watch or phone records, and upload the activity to Strava, where the map shows the shape.
Yes. GPS art and GPS drawing are the general names, and Strava art is what most people call it because Strava is where the finished drawings get shared. Any app or watch that records a GPS track works.
No. A free Strava account is enough to upload the activity and show off the drawing. To follow the route while you move, load the GPX file onto your watch or into a navigation app you already use.
There is no fixed length. Simple shapes like hearts and letters can work in a few kilometers, while detailed animals and portraits usually need 15 km or more so the streets can hold the details. Cyclists can go much bigger.
Yes. Running, cycling, walking and hiking all leave a GPS track. Riders cover more ground, so they can draw bigger pictures, while runners and walkers get more control over small details.
Usually because of Strava's map visibility settings, which can hide the start and end of activities near places like your home. Start the drawing a little away from those places, or review the setting before you upload.
No. RouteSketcher is an independent route planner for GPS art. Strava is a trademark of Strava, Inc., and RouteSketcher is not affiliated with or endorsed by Strava. Routes you plan here work with Strava and with any other app that reads GPX files.
Draw a shape, snap it to your streets and export the GPX. Your first 2 sketches are free, no credit card needed.
Strava is a trademark of Strava, Inc. RouteSketcher is an independent tool and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Strava.
Made with ❤️ by tonnoz © 2024–2026 · logo by kanepone.com
Strava is a registered trademark of Strava, Inc. RouteSketcher is not affiliated with or endorsed by Strava in any way.
