As with some other highly technical disciplines I think what we're seeing is the possibility of going down a rabbit-hole of optimizing for 1-2% extra efficiency in various subsystems/components...
For people who road cycle very seriously this will lead towards things like bikes that have a $6000-8000 all up cost with deep aero section wheels, expensive tires, ultra lightweight components to put the whole thing near a UCI-illegal weight, and so on.
It's probably easy to spend $1500 on a road bike combined aero bar-stem package that comes out of a single piece CF mold and has very marginally better aerodynamic performance in wind at >35km/h, but the returns are minuscule.
There is definitely a phenomenon of diminishing returns with increasing money spent above a certain point, that would be difficult to subjectively notice unless tested by a person that rides a very large amount like >10,000 km/year.
For people who road cycle very seriously this will lead towards things like bikes that have a $6000-8000 all up cost with deep aero section wheels, expensive tires, ultra lightweight components to put the whole thing near a UCI-illegal weight, and so on.
It's probably easy to spend $1500 on a road bike combined aero bar-stem package that comes out of a single piece CF mold and has very marginally better aerodynamic performance in wind at >35km/h, but the returns are minuscule.
There is definitely a phenomenon of diminishing returns with increasing money spent above a certain point, that would be difficult to subjectively notice unless tested by a person that rides a very large amount like >10,000 km/year.