Originally Posted by
Koyote
I'm not sure your analogy holds up. Driving a car aggressively (burnouts, drifting around corners) will obviously wear out tires faster, but riding a road bike faster involves no such additional tire wear. And while higher-speed driving creates more heat and friction on auto tires, I'm not convinced that cycling speeds are anywhere near high enough to create such an effect.
Rear wheels propel the bike forward by friction between the tire and ground. Just because you don't feel your rear tire slipping on the ground doesn't mean that the rubber isn't being scraped away by drive forces. That's why rear tires tend to square off and wear out faster than fronts, and lots of climbing accelerates the effect. Seems reasonable to intuit that applying more power (especially suddenly rather than smoothly) would lead to quicker wear.