[vorador]

The competitive advantage is not physiological. Following your reasoning, that'd mean an F1 driver's competitive advantage is how fast they can push the pedals to get to 300kmph.

The real advantage is how fast you can navigate dangerous mountain roads which are narrow and have many hairpin turns.

[its_ethan]

I don't know that that's the analogy you'd want to use. It is correct that an F1 driver's competitive advantage is how fast they can get to 300 kmph (or just accelerate in general, since there's skill/strategy involved as to when/where to accelerate). If we're following that reasoning... the engine is that competitive advantage, and we know that to be a significant factor because there are millions of dollars of engineering effort to optimize the cars they race. The reaction time of how fast you can push the pedal is an incredibly small part of that equation.

If you're on a bike, that competitive edge "engine" is the cyclist own physiology. Yes, how fast you can navigate the roads is part of it, but is it not the acceleration/max speed out of the hairpin turn that represents the lion's share of overall time? Rather than the fractions of seconds gained/lost in the timing of accelerations at the turn? I guess it depends on the length/ frequency of turns in the course.

Just out of curiosity, would you be defending the skill required to do cross country as vigorously as you are for cycling?