For Joe Simpson, or say Earnest Shackleton's expedition to the Antarctic, these are stories where something went wrong and they were able to show heroic Endurance* just to survives.
In professional Cycling, it's slightly different, temptation is a factor.
You can stop at any time and you'll be picked up by the warm Broom Wagon or team cars that follows the race.
It would be so easy to give in to the devil on your shoulder offering you the easy way out...
Even giving in to that weakness is venerated by numerous photographs of weeping riders by the side of the road. Cycling fans seem to respond to a loser's suffering, as we recognise shared weakness.
That story of temptation seems to chime with stories of martyrs and saints.
Who knows though, like I said it's just a hypothesis.
* Sorry, terrible pun.
The issue is when it becomes addictive and it is not good suffering anymore, but rather deliberate destruction of body with long term consequences.