From personal experience I don't think I'm quite as fast but I actually think I might have more endurance and can do more longer rides...........or it just might be more stubbornness or persistence to overcome the discomfort in longer rides. Or it could just be I'm more knowledgeable and ride smarter. AS an engineer I should have some statistics to better support the theories. I guess there might be some stats from RAAM but those might not be large enough sample size and it is certainly a different caliber of athlete.