On the topic of the top-of-the-hill issue, I was missing a thing: isn’t it logical that heavy riders have an advantage when getting at the top when the climb flattens?
Let’s say there are 2 riders climbing. Rider A weighs 60Kg, rider B weighs 90Kg. During the climb it’s a Watt/Kg game. Assume they’re climbing at the same speed at 3.5W/kg. When reaching the top of the climb (when it becomes flatter), the W/Kg game becomes a Watt game, meaning that Rider B at 315 Watts will be considerably faster than rider a who’s pushing 210 Watts. This basically means that when Rider B just pushes his effort over the top, rider A needs to step up his game in order to be able to follow rider B.
I might be totally wrong here, but I thought this would be the main reason why Chris (who’s like rider A) feels he has a disadvantage. Please correct me where my thinking is wrong.