Aero Field Testing: Is DZ Nutz?

For the first time this year I had a nice opportunity to do some aerodynamic field testing.  My bike was all setup from a race on Sunday and the weather finally was forecasting a calm day.  I also had a simple position change that I wanted to test out.  As I mentioned in my blog about my race on Sunday, I decided to try out DZs stacked hand position, guessing that it seemed faster.  So I tried a simple A/B/A/B protocol with two laps each on my half-pipe.  I believe I executed all my lessons from last year, never shifting gears, soft peddling, good turnarounds, good settings on my head unit, etc.  My bike setup was much like last year, except I was using a disc wheel this year (which actually made magnet setup easier).  Maybe at some point I'll document photos of the two positions, but for now I'll just describe them.  Position A is my "standard" setup, fairly narrow elbows with my forearms resting on my water bottle and my hands gripping the shifters.  Position B is my "stacked hands" version where I hold my left hand on the top of the water bottle and stack the right on top of that with my forearms essentially touching each other.  For reference I put a picture of my bike and front end at the end of this post.

Results:
My run results looked very clean in aerolab and were quite consistent. Ideally I would have done another couple of runs, but the magnet fell off when I did a faster higher power pass.
  A1: CdA .229
  B1: CdA .218
  A2: CdA .225
  B2: CdA .215
Conclusion: DZ is not nutz!


AeroLab Pictures

Configuration A Run #1

Configuration B Run #1

Configuration A Run #2

Configuration B Run #2

Details:
Bike+Rider: 162.5 lbs/73.7 kg
Temp: 73 degrees F
Dew Point: 46.4
Rho: 1.1850
Barometric Pressure: 29.9 Hg
Wind: NE 3-4 mph
Quarq offsets: -150, -153, -148, -149

Position Pictures