I didn't find a lot in terms of wattage savings (I think 6 watts?) but I knew that I was relatively slippery going in. I went to confirm my equipment choices and found a position change that saved me 5 watts in the process and I was quite happy with that.

Bring your disc wheel. If you race with it you want to test with it.

A2 has plenty of helmets for you to try. Make sure the straps are properly adjusted on your helmets prior to arriving. Loose straps can add a sneaky amount of drag! If you race with shaved arms/legs do so the night before A2.

Come up with a plan for what you want to test and think it through. E.G. test a baseline helmet and clothing then maybe test another helmet then maybe switch clothing etc. If you really want to test changes to your fit I'd start off with a conservative baseline (e.g. a known good helmet like the Giro Advantage 2) and then once you find your fastest position fiddle with equipment choices. Just know going in that changes to equipment are quick to test (just leave helmets and clothing by the door to the tunnel, hop out, change, hop back in). Changes to fit can take more time as Geoff (or whoever is there helping with the test) will have to come into the tunnel and adjust your bike.

+1

Test position first, then equipment. Pointless to find the best helmet/suit and THEN change your position.
Tweaking position is not too big of a deal, but the clock is running... every bolt that has to turn is $$ spent not testing. Go in with a good position. de-cabling your bike can be helpful if you are going to play with cockpit height/etc.

Test like you are going to race. If you race with a disc, run a disc. same with a deep front. That said, changing wheels (A2 has a fairly good selection) is a big chunk of time.. so unless you are wanting to test something like how a trispoke interacts with your fork compared to a deep front... skip that.

Have you thought about doing something along the lines of Aerocamp? Having extra eyes is always helpful. I think I went in knowing much more than the average tester but was glad I had Heath there as his opinion was pretty invaluable at sneaking out a few extra watts.

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My Blog - http://leegoocrap.blogspot.com

Thanks guys

Is that just once per year ?

Hey there, we try to do one a couple of times a year. We can also do one off sessions. I'm in NC and can work something around your schedule if you have a time frame in mind. I've worked with both of these guys, so they can give you feedback on how their experience was.

Shoot me an email or PM and we can go from there. Brian (desert dude) has been talking about making a trip to NC in July, and I have a couple of people who want to test, but are on no particular timeline. We could put it all together in one day and you'd potentially have both of us there.

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Heath Dotson
HD Coaching:Website |Twitter: 140 Characters or Less|Facebook:Follow us on Facebook

I've just been once but I also have a pretty decent loop near my house for aero field testing :)

I'll try to answer these as best as I can:

1. We've had people go in and find almost no difference. Some people are not very sensitive to changes, clothing, helmets. Others have seen double what you are expecting and more. 9/10 see noticeable savings.

Two thoughts on this: The people who found little changes already had very good positions and refined a lot of their equipment choices based on what we and others have posted. Secondly, like all testing, you are getting information. If you come out without much difference then you know you are about as aerodynamically fast as possible and the engine needs work.

Another advantage to not being sensitive is the ability to tweak other things, like hydration and storage. We had one person who had the same drag with no bottles versus 4 round bottles. As a long course athlete this was valuable because they could carry most everything they needed without having to rely on on course nutrition or special needs.

2. We like for people to come in with a good fit. Generally the most we'll do is maybe raise or lower someone a 10-15mm, narrow elbows and play with hand position. If you end up doing a radical refit in the tunnel it is both expensive and potentially not sustainable. I get almost anyone in a very fast position, whether they can ride that way is a whole other story. ;)

3. You could leave your wheels at home if you wanted. The tunnel has Zipps and Mavic wheels there. As you said your wheels are your wheels. Also they have pretty much every helmet that is legal in the states. They don't have a MET or Ekoi, for example, which is not CE certified.

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Heath Dotson
HD Coaching:Website |Twitter: 140 Characters or Less|Facebook:Follow us on Facebook

Last year, when I organized a group for testing we had one guy who's first run was about his best. We tried maybe 10 different ways to optimize his CDA and nothing was more than a couple watts different, which I consider in the noise. Needless to say he left a little disappointed he spent the money and got any faster, but on the flipside he knows he is at his limited with no low hanging fruit.

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BoulderCyclingCoach.com

I think this is a poor way of looking at testing. If you find less than that, wouldn't that be reaffirming that you haven't been wasting all this time being slower?? If someone goes to the tunnel and finds 20 watts it means that they were doing a lot of shit wrong prior to that test.

A fair point

I hope my position is crap and I able to make some gains

Best bike split (if accurate) seems to suggest that my position is not slow but not great either

If not then I affirm my equipment choices , I would be ok with that