Strava Hidden Segments: Understanding Their Purpose, Privacy, and Implications

What are Strava Hidden Segments?

Strava hidden segments are specific, user-defined sections of a route that are no longer publicly visible or searchable within the platform, primarily due to privacy settings applied by the athlete who created or completed the activity containing the segment.

Understanding Strava Segments

Before delving into hidden segments, it's essential to grasp the concept of a standard Strava segment. A segment is a pre-defined section of road or trail, typically created by a Strava user, where athletes can compare their performance against others. These segments become dynamic virtual racecourses, allowing users to compete for King/Queen of the Mountain (KOM/QOM) titles, personal records (PRs), and overall leaderboard rankings. They are a core feature of the Strava experience, fostering competition and providing structured data analysis for specific route sections.

What Exactly Are "Hidden Segments"?

A "hidden segment" on Strava refers to a segment that exists on the platform but is not publicly displayed or searchable. Unlike deleted segments, which are permanently removed from the Strava database, hidden segments still process data and track performances for the individual athlete who completed them. However, they are inaccessible to the broader Strava community, meaning other users cannot see them on maps, search for them, or view their leaderboards.

Why Do Segments Become Hidden?

The primary reason a segment becomes hidden is rooted in Strava's privacy features, designed to protect user data and personal security.

• Privacy Zones: This is the most common and significant cause. Strava allows users to set "Privacy Zones" around sensitive locations, such as their home or workplace. If a segment's start or end point falls within any user's designated privacy zone, that segment will automatically become hidden for all Strava users. This measure prevents others from inferring an athlete's exact residence or frequent locations based on their activity data.
• Activity Privacy Settings: While less direct, if an entire activity that contains a segment is set to a highly restrictive privacy setting (e.g., "Only You"), the performance on that segment will not contribute to public leaderboards and may not be viewable by others, even if the segment itself is otherwise public. However, the segment definition becoming hidden is primarily due to privacy zones.
• "No Public Leaderboard" Creation: When a segment is initially created, the creator has the option to make it a "private segment" with no public leaderboard. While not strictly "hidden" by privacy zones, these segments function similarly in that they are not discoverable or competitive for the general public, existing primarily for the creator's personal tracking.

Implications for Athletes and Data Analysis

The existence of hidden segments has several implications for Strava users:

• Enhanced Privacy: For athletes, hidden segments are a crucial privacy safeguard, ensuring that their personal space remains private, even when sharing their activities.
• Limited Competition: From a competitive standpoint, hidden segments reduce the scope for racing. Athletes cannot target or attempt KOMs/QOMs on segments they cannot see or search for.
• Data Integrity for Individuals: While hidden from the public, the athlete who completed the segment still retains all their performance data for that segment within their own activity records. They can still track their personal bests and progress on these hidden sections.
• Challenges in Route Planning: For athletes planning routes, the inability to see or search for all existing segments means they might unknowingly pass over or miss opportunities to compete on sections of road or trail that are popular among other local athletes but hidden due to privacy settings.

Navigating Hidden Segments: What You Need to Know

As a Strava user, understanding how hidden segments operate is vital:

• Inability to Search: You cannot directly search for or discover hidden segments through Strava's segment explore feature.
• Map Invisibility: Hidden segments will not appear on the public maps within the Strava app or website, even if you are physically on the route.
• Performance Visibility: If you complete an activity that contains a hidden segment, your performance on that segment will still be recorded and visible to you. However, it will not appear on any public leaderboard for that segment (because there isn't one publicly available).
• Creating New Segments: If you create a new segment, and its start or end point falls within your own privacy zone, that segment will likely be hidden to others. If it falls within another user's privacy zone, it may also become hidden for everyone, depending on Strava's internal logic for protecting user privacy.

The Role of Privacy Settings

The control over segment visibility largely rests with individual athletes' privacy settings:

• Setting Privacy Zones: Users are strongly encouraged to utilize Strava's privacy zone feature. By defining a radius around their home, work, or other sensitive locations, they automatically ensure that any segment starting or ending within these zones becomes hidden from public view.
• Activity Visibility: While less direct for segment hiding, setting your overall activity visibility to "Followers" or "Only You" will prevent others from seeing your performance on any segment within that activity, regardless of whether the segment itself is public or hidden.

Conclusion

Strava hidden segments are a nuanced yet critical feature of the platform, primarily serving as a robust privacy mechanism. By automatically concealing segments that intersect with user-defined privacy zones, Strava balances the desire for community engagement and competitive data with the essential need for personal security. For the discerning athlete, understanding hidden segments means appreciating the platform's commitment to privacy while also recognizing the limitations this imposes on public segment discovery and competition.