Has Strava changed its method of recording challenges, before if a ride was marked down as private it never counted. Now its you, everyone or followers . My backup without pics are set as you ( the old private settings) need to delete the backup on the laptop when home.
Looks like it.
All my current challenges have the following text
"Any qualifying activity, whether private or not, will count towards your private progress, badges, and rewards for this challenge. To respect activity visibility settings, only activities marked as visible to Everyone will be applied toward leaderboard rankings. Manual activities will not count towards the leaderboard."
But it looks like that can be set differently by the challenge owner.
I notice one Rouvy Challenge says:
"Manual entries will not count towards the challenge goal. Activities must be marked "Everyone.""