How HexHunting works — HexHunting.com

The basics

Connect your Strava account. Everything you upload afterwards is processed automatically (usually within a day; your full history is imported once when you connect).
For every route we work out which hexagons it passes through. Pass through an empty one and it is yours.
Pass through somebody else's hexagon and you take it. Every previous owner loses 50% of their own accumulated points from that hex.
Riding through your own hexagon changes nothing — you already hold it.
A shared hex is determined separately for every hex. From 1 June 2026, players share a hex when their recorded passage times differ by no more than 60 seconds. This applies to all eligible GPS sports, including different sports or opposite directions. Each group fits within one 60-second window; successive passages do not extend that window. Every group member becomes an individual co-owner. The group hex is blue for a co-owner and orange for everyone else, making group hexes that are still up for capture immediately visible.
If the group changes later, riders who are present again keep their ownership and points. Absent former co-owners lose 50% of their own accumulated points; new group members become owners.

Points

From 25 October 2026, joining an existing owner as a co-owner for the first time also earns 50 times your speed factor. You receive no loot from the existing ownership. Rejoining does not earn another bonus; existing owners retain their ownership and personal growth.
Each activity gets a factor from its actual average speed: roughly 1.00 at 25 km/h and capped at 2.00 at 10 or 5 km/h. That factor applies to takeovers, earlier claims and daily hex value. From 1 October 2026, a hex never captured before earns 50 times this factor in immediate claim points, up to 100.
Take a hexagon from someone and its full accumulated value remains the basis. Your speed factor also applies to loot, up to 2.00. Example: 41 raw points × loot factor 2.00 = 82 points of weighted loot.
The accumulated hex value always remains at 100%; weighting the loot does not change the hex itself. Only daily leaderboard growth is credited more softly per player per day: 100% up to 50 points, 50% from 50 to 150, 20% from 150 to 400 and 5% above 400. This keeps players with very many hexagons from running away.
The tiers restart every day. Examples: 100 points of gross growth counts as 75, 500 as 155 and 1,000 as 180 leaderboard points. The hex value itself stays in full.
The tiers are calculated once across all sports. The Cycling, Running and Other filters then show their proportional share and add up exactly to All sports.
Loot stays yours, even if you lose the hexagon again later.
Each owner’s hex value grows daily by their own speed factor (at most two points). Every co-owner receives their own growth; it is not divided between them.
Growth cap: per ownership a hex counts at most 100 value steps (the claim day plus at most 99 growth days) and never exceeds 200 points. At 30 km/h it stops around 83 points, at 25 km/h at 100, and running and walking at no more than 200. The raw value used for loot stops at 100; loot itself stops at 200.
Your leaderboard score is therefore: claim points plus credited daily growth, activity-speed-weighted loot and Golden Hex bonuses, minus losses. Losing a hex costs 50% of your own accumulated value in that hex.
Golden Hexes: every day a set of golden hexagons appears on the map, partly around your own area and partly spread across the world. Ride or run through one during a valid activity and you get a one-off 200 bonus points — at most one per day, even if your route hits several. A new set appears at midnight. A Golden Hex changes nothing about ownership: you do not capture it automatically and the normal claim rules stay exactly the same.

Rankings

Today, week, month and year count claim points, tiered daily growth, activity-speed-weighted loot and Golden Hex bonuses, minus losses in that period.
The all-time ranking shows your total points, your number of hexagons and your largest connected area.
The largest cluster only counts hexagons that touch each other. A compact area is worth more than scattered dots across the province.

What counts?

Cycling, running, walking, skating, mountain biking, gravel — anything with a real route counts.
Virtual activities do not count: indoor trainer, treadmill and anything that arrives marked as virtual. Those activities stay in your overview but do not earn hexagons.
Activities without a GPS route (strength training, for example) earn nothing.
Activities from before the start date of the game do not count towards ownership, but they do show up on your explored map.
A new player can still be added to a verifiable historic group ride from the game start onwards. Their own score history is then replayed chronologically; an old solo activity can never retroactively take an occupied hex.

Tactics

A hexagon is roughly 2.4 km across. A 20 km loop easily touches eight to twelve of them.
Taking new ground scores immediately, but old hexagons owned by someone else are worth far more: they have been ripening for weeks.
Defending a compact area scores well in the cluster ranking. Riding all over the place collects scattered hexagons.
Want to know what a route is worth before you go? Use the GPX check.

Frequently asked questions

How quickly does my activity appear? Usually within a day; the import runs automatically.
I do not see my older activities. Only activities from the start date count towards the game; the rest appear on your explored map.
Can I keep activities private? Yes. With your permission an Only You activity may count, but other players never see the activity, route or your name with that claim.
I walk or run, is that hopeless against cyclists? No. The factor from your average speed increases takeover claim points and daily hex value up to 2.00; since 1 October a first capture of an empty hex earns 50 times that factor, up to 100 points. The loot factor on a takeover is also capped at 2.00.