In a support post this morning, Strava announced big changes that will drastically reduce the number of segments showing on Zwift activities. Here is how Strava summarized the changes:
- The least popular virtual ride segments have been made private, but none have been deleted. Any segments you’ve created can be found on the Strava website by selecting Dashboard > My Segments > Created Segments.
- Any newly created virtual segments will be private.
In Strava’s words, these changes should “… remove clutter and noise so athletes can experience the segments that matter the most.” Let’s dig into this a bit more…
Some Background
Virtual segments, and specifically Zwift virtual segments, have been putting a strain on Strava’s systems for years. Strava was designed with real-world segment traffic in mind, and that is very different from the sort of traffic Zwift brings. In the real world, riders are spread out and so are the segments. On Zwift, riders are concentrated into small areas, with tens (hundreds!) of thousands riding each day.
This strain has become clear in recent months, when we haven’t been able to create Zwift Insider verified segments for routes of any substantial length due to Strava timing out in the “Check for Duplicates” step of its segment creation workflow. It appears there are simply too many public segments for Strava to compare against.
Additionally, the sheer the number of Strava segments for Zwift courses is just silly. And Strava’s automated systems for choosing which segments to display or hide have never worked well on Zwift.
New Segments=Private Segments
With this change, all newly-created virtual segments will be private, meaning only the creator can see the segment.
Note: at the time of this post, this change doesn’t appear to be fully implemented. There was still a checkbox in the segment creator tool to “Make this segment private”.
Existing Segments Made Private
Strava says “The least popular virtual ride segments have been made private”. They aren’t disclosing just how many segments were switched to private with this change, but from what I’m hearing it’s a “significant portion of existing segments.” When I asked Strava what sort of “signals” they are using to decide which segments stay public and which ones are switched to private, they said:
We’re reviewing segments based on engagement post-activity upload and understanding whether athletes look at the segment analysis and leaderboards. Segments with lowest engagement are made private.
Sounds sensible to me. Odd that they didn’t mention whether or not people have starred a segment, but my guess is this is included in their engagement metrics as well.
Private segments are only visible to a segment’s creator, meaning they aren’t matched against the activities of other riders. So switching many public segments to private means two good things: less processing required in terms of segment matching for Strava, and fewer segments showing up in activities.
Of course, Zwifters can still see their own results on any segments they’ve created on their ride activity details page.
What About Zwift Insider Verified Segments?
Strava and ZwiftHQ reached out to me at Zwift Insider with news about this change, because they recognize that our large set of “Zwift Insider verified” Strava segments are important to the community and should be kept public. I was grateful for that! So it sounds like our segments will be kept public.
In the short-term, creating new Zwift Insider verified segments will require an extra step or two of reaching out to Strava to get the segment made public. But I can deal with that.
What About My Segments?
In my chats with Zwift, it is clear they are well aware that the community has created many bespoke segments that are used to track various events. It is unclear how many (if any) of these segments will be switched to private, but hopefully between Strava’s automated triggers and Zwift’s communication with Strava the useful community segments will stay public.
When I asked Strava what the process was for “forcing” a segment to be public, they said:
…if the Zwift team recognizes a segment as important or significant and lets Strava know, then Strava will make it public.
Wrapping It Up
A few weeks ago, Strava rolled out new algorithms to catch impossible efforts upon uploads. They say today’s change is the next step in “making the segment experience better for athletes”. I agree!
As I said over 3 years ago, “I don’t care if I got a PR on a random .2 mile section of London titled ‘your mom smells like donuts’! Reducing the clutter will make it much easier for athletes to track their progress on segments they actually care about.
My only concern is that useful, community-created segments will remain public. I’m sure we’ll hear from the Zwift community if that doesn’t happen, but I’m hoping Strava has implemented the auto-privatization of existing segments so it’s all quite painless.
What Do You Think?
Does this change seem like a good one? What are your thoughts? Share below!
Ahh now I can’t see if I PR’d 352 segments in a 20mi ride. lol
Great idea. Zwift rides have too many segments on them
This is a great idea. Most of the time from the Strava map, it’s hard to see exactly where the segment was anyway.
best change ever to strava in a while
Phew, thank heavens for that. Some of those micro segments drive me nuts. Love the official Zwift Insider ones though. So thanks for those 🙂
Great move, now if they could just remove everything except the ZwiftInsider verified ones that would be wonderful.
Perfect! I’ve spent so much time going through the ‘hidden segments’ to unhide the only segments that matter – the ‘Zwift Insider Verified’ ones of course 🙂 … so this should make reviewing segment times and efforts a lot easier… Good stuff.
“control F” (text finder) is your friend there, makes it very fast to pull up the only ones i care about (zwift Insider) and then hide everything else.
Haha, been doing that consistently over the last year… Only one annoys me “Shanes third nipple” or something like that, wtf?
Zwift rocks! Absolutely awesome, you are keeping me sane in a 100% lockdown! Thank you.
Ive never understood why people at Zwift don’t work with Strava directly. Instead of
Watopia showing up in a read world location Strava should have created a virtual map for Zwift. Zwift should have then created accurate routes for all the routes, sprints and climbs. I then won’t have let individuals create their own public segments.
this change will be a good one, if the segments you rely on remain and are populated by all riders
Nice change on Strava, and I Agree 100%, Brandon. Further, I don’t know why Strava and Zwift don’t join forces on all levels. I would love to have a SINGLE platform where I could track all of my outdoor and indoor rides and have the community. Zwava? (kidding)
Veloviewer is doing exactly that in a very nice way. Combined with the leader board, I’m happily paying for that service.
Yes!!!!
love this change, so annoying having to hide all those silly segments. Just keep the zwift insider ones!
Hallelujah!
If private segments include only times for the owner (?), then they are substantially less useful – no ranking. Or, perhaps they include times for other riders, without those other riders being aware of it or seeing those segments?
Nope–just times for the owner.
YES!! Insider verified are all I ever pay attention to. Thank you for your efforts.
I may get my strava premium back cause listen folk STRAVA IS BACK IN DA GAME
Will be interesting to see how well they strike a balance in keeping the “useful” segments public. Based on how well they have done in showing/hiding segments, I’m not super-optimistic.
Strava must be getting tired of handling all the flagged KOMs on Zwift segments where people are clocking in at 108 kph on a 2% uphill grade. Does Strava even deal with flagged Zwift segments? I wouldn’t blame them or be surprised if they don’t even bother with them.
Great news, but I do hope some of the more challenging milestone segments remain, like ones acheived at 200km
Where to get this 200k achievement?
Amen! It’s about time!
Thats great, works for me, now if Strava would include the biggest climb achievement in Zwift on our Strava profile page that would be sweet. I don’t see myself in Hawaii anytime soon.
Makes sense. Now if they would just work with Zwift Insider to get a sensible set of segments available !
Hopefully this will help with trying to decipher which KOM is the real one since 18 segments show up for the same location 🤦
I only ever look at the ones that list immediately when I open the activity, and ignore the several hundred others. The only segments I would like to see regularly are the sprints and the full climbs. it’s not like I’m a KoM contender 🙂
About damn time!!
Perfect Idea!!
Brilliant idea n move.
Now we just need Strava to allow us to record the sprint segments on Zwift that are normally to small to be recorded. 😋
YES! (I’m actually in touch with some folks inside Strava about this. We’ll see what they say…)
Not really related, but I saw another change on my end this week. I can no longer filter any segment on a Zwift ride by people I follow. Only IRL rides provides this filter. Any feedback on that?
I noticed the same thing in the Android app, it’s still there if you access via the website. I asked Strava support but they haven’t responded with an answer yet
I had the same issue on iOS. Contacted Strava support and this was the reply…
Thanks for writing in. We may temporarily disable some filtered leaderboards during peak upload times to improve athlete experience. You may notice that Virtual Rides have these (one or two) views turned off longer than other activities. We appreciate your understanding and patience.
In the meantime, as you noticed, when these filtered leaderboards are disabled, you may be able to view this information on the website
Thanks Gareth. That’s good info. Much appreciated.
I almost hide all Segments that are not tagged ”Zwift Insider”
This is fantastic! Most of the segments that have been made for zwift are totally pointless (to me I guess) and looking through the ride is so annoying. I wish the koms and sprint segments in zwift would be the only ones that show.
Zwift insider segments are great. I would like to see climbs of substantial length, loops, official courses, etc. The stuff that pulls up a clock in game to count your time matters, really nothing else does. Maybe like 5, 10 and 25 lap volcano loops too.
This is good news, I have all the Zwift Insider segments starred, and hide the rest, but new random ones just keep popping up. Thanks Zwift, Zwift instder (Eric) and Strava.
People still use Strava?
About time. The number of segments were getting stupid and who has the time to make these segments up….I for one couldn’t care less and am just glad they wont be clogging up my Strava Feed any longer.
Hoping there will be active discrimination between actual ZIV segments and the imposters…
I’ve thought this from the day I started Zwifting. The segments should be the ones with Zwift start/finish lines and leaderboards and maybe a few others. The clutter is useless and annoying.
And routes.
Another step Strava has taken is to remove segment comparison for people you ‘follow’ from iOS
For virtual rides that is
Reply from Strava support…
Thanks for writing in. We may temporarily disable some filtered leaderboards during peak upload times to improve athlete experience. You may notice that Virtual Rides have these (one or two) views turned off longer than other activities. We appreciate your understanding and patience.
In the meantime, as you noticed, when these filtered leaderboards are disabled, you may be able to view this information on the website
My VeloViewer score is likely to tank from this, but I’m happy to clear out the duplicates.
what??? no love for “2.98 miles from my start to finish” on the Innsbruck map???
It’s actually about time this happened. Rode the Lutscher CCW today, hide 70 or so segments that are useless and another 6 that either describe most of the climb or the descent. Rather stick with the Zwift Insider ones as they are the most consistent of the bunch and I know are setup correctly.
Probably the best update Strava has released in, ummm, years!!
Strava can change all they want, since they stopped working w Relive maps, I’ve seen over 20 cyclist switch over . They’re irrelevant. They’re trying to come back.
Switch over to what?
I’ve literally spent minutes hiding all the stupid Zwift segments (not insider verified segments though). Now I won’t need to do that! Good job Strava.
Oh man! I hope the “I think this is where Anakin fell in” in the volcano survives!
ok, that is the only stupid and short segment that i hope survives as well….
The only ones I care about are the “zwift insider verified” segments. They cover the most logical sections, such as official routes and timed sections like sprints and climbs. Anything else is.just noise and gets in the way. I’ve hidden loads, but more keep.aplearing. great move Strava! 😎
Not being able to create a public segment (if that is the change) seems like overkill. This would trash a feature I’ve enjoyed using — creating longer routes, for example. Still possible to create of course, but no ranking.
Understood that segment clutter is a problem, but I’m afraid Strava may not have the right fix here. Setting up hiding to work better could fix the problem without breaking the usefulness of public segments.
Agreed. If they just had their code to decide which segments to hide in a better state we wouldn’t have this problem. Which makes me think that maybe there is another reason behind this change: they want to reduce the load on their servers.
👍 Not too long ago I spent a lot of time hiding lots of segments and then looking through the hidden ones to unhide the Zwift Insider Verified ones along with some climbs I thought worthy of being shown. As a funny note, I was searching in the browser for the word “verified” to ease my task, and I found one segment referring to somebody’s third nipple, with “zwiftinsider verified” tag. See the missing space. I really hope Strava makes that and alikes private. The number of segments that overlap almost completely is insane. This change is welcome. Looking forward… Read more »
The zwift insider verified segments are the only ones I pay attention to so pretty pleased with this however quite often the segments don’t show up in Strava. I’ve done box hill twice this week and on both occasions that segment didn’t show up. All the rest of the stupid segments did…
You now can’t see how you stack up with riders you follow, so for me it’s a thumbs down
That’s great news. There were so many I didn’t care to look anymore for segment achievements. I only really care about the K/QOMs, sprints, complete routes and the segments the majority (Zwift Insider?) thinks are interesting. It makes it small races inside a race.
Not the Zwift related but I hope Strava will soon separate e-bike segments and standard segments in real life rides in order to stop endless holywars between athletes and electric KOM hunters.
Good news. I’ve been spending my time doing this manually already and only really value the zwiftinsider segments anyway.
Good!!! I really get frustrated when I look at segments after a ride and there are hundreds of them, 90% covering the same section of road.