Originally Posted by
Camilo
I'll bet the aero difference between 42 and 44 is not even measurable at any practical level,
And I would bet you're wrong. The wind hitting your chest between your arms is a big part of the riders wind resistence. When you move your arms in, your chest effectively is drafting your arms, and wind resistence is reduced.
In wind tunnel testing, racers spend a lot of time and money fiddling with small changes in the spacing width of the pads on aerobars because even small changes in width make a big differnce in drag.
One way to look at this is the 2cm increase in width effectively increases the width of the figure you're presenting to the wind by almost 5%.
I am certain the difference would be measurable, now whether the difference matters to you, and/or whether it is outweighed by different considerations, (such as comfort, power output, and stability.) are different questions.