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RED BULL X-ALPS 2025

3D Race Replay & Analysis Dashboard

Explore GPS telemetry from 35 athletes racing across the Alps by paraglider and on foot over 17 days. Use the play button to animate the race, open the Athletes panel to solo-filter, and check the Analysis panel for live wind and climb data.

Click the ? button anytime for the full documentation, data methodology, and controls reference.

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RED BULL X-ALPS 2025

3D Race Replay & Thermal Analysis
SOLO #
Day 1
00:00
0.5x 1x 4x 12x
Thermals: 0 Wind: 0 Active: 0

RED BULL X-ALPS 2025 — Documentation

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About the Race

The Red Bull X-Alps is one of the world's toughest adventure races. Athletes must travel from Salzburg, Austria to Monaco (~1,200 km) using only two modes of transport: paragliding (flying) or hiking on foot. No motorized transport is allowed. Athletes carry their own paraglider weighing ~30 kg and must pass through mandatory turnpoints along the Alpine route. First to reach the finish line wins.

The race spans approximately 12-14 days with mandatory rest periods enforced at night. Some athletes earn "night passes" allowing overnight movement. The 2025 edition featured 35 athletes from 20+ countries.

Data Pipeline

This dashboard visualizes raw GPS telemetry from 35 athletes over 17 race days (June 12-27, 2025).

Naviter GPS
→
Pub/Sub
→
BigQuery
→
Python ETL
→
JSON 17MB
→
ArcGIS 3D

Each athlete carries a Naviter Omni GPS instrument that records 18 fields per fix including: latitude, longitude, GPS altitude, barometric altitude, altitude above ground, speed, groundspeed, heading, vertical speed, windspeed, wind direction, activity mode (Flying/Hiking/Stationary), airspace, rest status, nightpass status, and GPS quality.

Processing: 37.5M raw GPS fixes were deduplicated into 90-second time buckets with sensor priority ranking (Naviter > Satellite > Flarm > OGN). Coordinates rounded to 4 decimal places (~11m accuracy). Final output: 294K track points, 59K climb events, 62K wind observations.

Analysis Methodology & Assumptions

The analysis panel derives insights from raw sensor fields. These are interpretations, not direct measurements.

Climb Events (labeled "Thermals")

Any GPS fix where the raw Vertical Speed field exceeds 1.0 m/s, from Naviter sensors only. This is a simple threshold filter — no clustering of consecutive points into distinct events, no spatial analysis, no weather correlation.

Positive vertical speed likely indicates thermal lift (rising warm air used by paragliders to gain altitude), but could also be ridge lift, wave lift, or sensor noise. The UserActivity field was not checked, so some points may be from hiking uphill, not flying. The 1.0 m/s threshold is an arbitrary cutoff.

  • Active = count of qualifying GPS fixes within ±1 hour of current time (not distinct thermal events)
  • Avg m/s = mean vertical speed of those fixes
  • Max m/s = highest single vertical speed value in the window

Wind Rose

Built from the raw Windspeed (km/h) and Wind Direction (degrees) fields recorded by the Naviter Omni instrument. These are onboard measurements from the athlete's device, not weather station data.

Sampled every 5 minutes per athlete. The chart shows all observations within ±1.5 hours of the current playback time, binned into 16 compass directions and 4 speed ranges (0-5, 5-15, 15-25, 25+ km/h).

  • Avg km/h = mean windspeed of visible observations
  • Max km/h = highest single windspeed in the window
  • Dominant = compass direction with the most observations

Altitude Profile

Plots the raw GPS Altitude (ellipsoid height in meters) over the athlete's full track timeline. Only shown in solo mode. The red vertical line marks the current playback position. This is a direct plot of the sensor data with no smoothing or correction.

Map Layers

  • Glowing colored lines — Each athlete's GPS track rendered at actual altitude above the 3D terrain. Dual-layer glow effect (translucent outer + bright inner core).
  • Numbered circles — Athlete current positions animated along their tracks. The number inside is their bib/race number. Colors match the track lines.

Controls Reference

Play / PauseStart or stop the race animation (also: Space bar)
Time SliderDrag to scrub through the 17-day race timeline
Speed buttons0.5x to 12x — how fast time advances (1x = 1 simulated hour per real second)
← / → keysJump backward / forward 1 hour
SOLO (pin icon)In the Athletes panel, click the pin to filter all data to one athlete
Show AllExit solo mode, restore all athletes
Double-click nameFly the 3D camera to that athlete's current position
Chart / People iconsToggle the Analysis and Athletes side panels
? buttonOpen this documentation page

Data Source & Limitations

  • Raw data exported from Google BigQuery (Pub/Sub subscription: naviter_to_bigquery)
  • Sensor data quality varies: GPS Quality field ranges 0-50 (signal-to-noise ratio). Fixes in deep valleys may be inaccurate.
  • Wind and activity fields are only populated from Naviter (N) sensor type, not Satellite, Flarm, or OGN.
  • Athlete names are approximate — bib-to-name mapping may contain inaccuracies.
  • The 1.0 m/s climb threshold is an arbitrary cutoff, not a paragliding standard.
  • Race data is property of Red Bull Media House / Red Bull X-Alps.

RED BULL X-ALPS 2025

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