Originally Posted by
SethAZ
This is a good illustration of the wrong way people think about percentages and riding. While 100 miles sounds like a long distance, and it is, the real distance that's important here is the distance between two finishers of that ride. If you could improve your speed by 1/10 of 1%, you'd finish 528 feet ahead of someone who other than this change was riding exactly the same speed as you.
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Actually your thinking is off too. Most of a road race occurs within the peloton, where nobody is working all out. So Races aren't decided based on performance over the entire distance, but over the few hundred yards of final sprints, or somewhat more with breakaways, or if you include the runup to the finish over the last few miles.
Since sprinting is about acceleration, weight can be very important, but rigidity becomes just as important, so good bike design balances these.