Wings of Survival case study

About Wings of Survival

Wings of Survival is a nine-month, 30,000 km cycling expedition led by global change ecologist Dr Timm Döbert and extreme endurance athlete Leanna Carriere, a former Canadian decathlete. They set off from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska on 1 August and are riding south to Tierra del Fuego, retracing the remarkable migrations of GPS-tracked whimbrels.

Whimbrels are a tipping point species. The global population of this threatened shorebird has fallen by more than 80% in the last 50 years. The idea is that the riders face the same flyway, weather and smoke as the birds, so their story becomes inseparable from the bird’s stories.

The ride is mapped live by ZeroSixZero, who build interactive tracking maps for expeditions from ocean rows to polar crossings.

The Challenge

Riding continuously for up to nine hours a day means breathing a lot of air, and athletes take in 4 to 10 times more pollutants than someone at rest. The route runs straight through North American wildfire country in late summer, and smoke can drift a long way from the fire itself. A clear sky doesn't always mean clean air, and on a bike there's no window to close.

The team needed three things:

• Real-time air quality wherever they were, even on remote highways with no monitoring stations nearby.
• Information they could act on while riding.
• A way to share the air quality story with everyone following the expedition.

What we delivered

AirTrack API on the live map: ZeroSixZero have added our air quality data to the Wings of Survival tracking map, so followers, sponsors and researchers can see the air alongside the riders' position.

AirTrack on the road: Leanna and Timm use the AirTrack app to check the air in real time, especially when wildfires are close.

Air quality along the route: AirTrack is connected to Timm's Strava, modelling five pollutants (PM2.5, PM10, NO2, O3 and SO2) along his GPS route for every hour of riding.

Monthly data stories: we share what the data shows as the ride goes on, starting with our August round-up for International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies.

Impact

The good news is that the air has mostly been on their side. We checked their first 6,245 km against the AirTrack engine along the route. For most of the journey, fine particles and ozone remained within WHO guideline levels. AirTrack identified the 1,330 km Cassiar Highway as the lowest particle stretch of the trip so far.

But conditions were not always clean. In late August, our data showed wildfire smoke affecting parts of British Columbia for up to half of their riding time. At Burns Lake, the PM2.5 rose from 2 to 20 µg/m³ as they approached. Ozone was the pollutant that came closest to guideline levels most often, increasing by around two-thirds between Alaska and California, although it still remained within the WHO guideline.

This is where real-time data becomes especially useful. When wildfire smoke moves in, the team can use AirTrack to decide whether to reduce intensity or wear a mask. On hot, sunny days, they can also shift their riding earlier, before ozone concentrations build later in the day.

Feedback from Wings of Survival

"I love being able to use the Airtrack app in real time to check the air quality, especially when we know there are wildfires nearby. It gives us the information we need to make smart decisions while we're riding, whether that means masking up, adjusting our intensity, or re-routing if needed." Leanna Carriere, Co-founder of Wings of Survival

"Air pollution is a highly underrated risk in the context of long-distance endurance challenges. This applies to human-powered expeditions and bird migrations alike. We have avoided the worst of forest fires in North America - overall air quality across the first 6500km ranged from very good to excellent; I worry that many birds were not that lucky." Dr Timm Döbert, principal founder of Wings of Survival

Go deeper

→ Follow the ride on the live ZeroSixZero map

→ Press release on August's air quality data from the route

→ More about the expedition at Wings of Survival

→ The science and research on athletes and air pollution

Contact us

The AirTrack API gives your map, app or event real-time, location-specific air quality, so your users can see what they're breathing wherever they are. That's useful for expeditions, endurance events and anyone spending long hours outdoors.

Contact us to discuss how the API could work for you: hello@airawarelabs.com