I don't think the competition really is: who's the fastest in a 216km race? Rather: who's strong enough to endure a 200km tour, and then still have the energy for a 16km race? I say this half jokingly only.
Cycling races are much the same with a team dynamic included. It's a matter of choosing between setting a pace that a sprint finisher can't follow over a long period, or sheltering a sprinter from the wind so he can put in maximal effort at the end of the race. There are all sorts of variations based on strength of team, weather, terrain, luck, politics between teams, race goals, etc...
But all spectator sports seem to gain much their appeal from the imperfections that make them special. In road cycling, it's the imbalance of many hours of what computer gamers would call mostly cooperative PvE serving as a buildup for the few seconds of the finish (unless it's a solo, which is super attractive for the audience because it's rare, but would be rather boring if it wasn't).