Is there a way to do this without using your cell phone...as in through a PC?

Yeah, just plug it into the computer via a micro USB and go through Garmin Express. Just like with any other Garmin.

Or plug it into your computer, open your file browser and go to the /garmin/activities folder and copy the file with the timestamp in the name that matches the time of the ride you are wanting. You can also import or upload that file to any website or software that you care to use for viewing it. Then you don't have to rely on the automatic syncs and uploading tools that sometimes are quirky or simply limit what site you go to.

Also you can save it on your computer for archival purposes and not have to depend on Garmin Connect or any other website to be there when you want your data back.

p.s. Garmin did slightly change their directory names on some of the devices. I've seen some as /garmin/activity and another model with /garmin/activities. similarly /garmin/newfile and /garmin/newfiles. Go figure?

Not sure if this is computer or OS-specific, but under Windows 10 if you try to download any FIT files directly from the Garmin (whether they may be activities, courses, etc), the files are unreadable (i.e. they look corrupt -- possibly compressed and/or encrypted).

You can use garmin connect. Plug in your phone to the PC via USB and it will load activites to the connect web cloud/app. From there you can download individual activities if you want. You can also set it up to have connect automatically upload them to strava.

.fit files are not readable with simple text editors and word processors. Essentially they are considered only machine readable files much like other data files that are not in standard text format.

So they aren't being corrupted by Win 10. It's just you have no way to view their data without using a program that knows how to interpret what is in them. I copy all mine to my win 10 PC just so I know I'll always have them.

.tcx, .gpx, and some other common files Garmin and others use are in a text format and can be read and modified with a text editor. I'm not certain, but I think the .fit standards allow for quite a bit of proprietary encoding of data put into them, where the other files standards don't define or may not allow any way to do that.

Plug it into a USB and it will be mounted like any other storage device. It's easy enough to find the rides in the Activities folder. Files are named by date and time of the ride. Drag and drop to your disk. You can upload to Garmin or Strava.

???

"Unreadable" by what program?

Fit files are binary files. Windows (or any operating system) knows nothing about how to read them.

You have to use a program like Golden Cheetah to open/read them.