He even cut a strip out of his tyre!
Why drill holes in your saddle to save weight, but still use bar tape and wear socks?
He doesn't have bar tape, just some lecky tape to keep the cables in place.
Whilst looking at the cut (which looks like a small leaf or something stuck to the tyre to me) in the tyre, did you not notice he has chopped the brake blocks in half too, lol! Only half a block in there. One thing I noticed though, he has clipped of the brake cable right at the clamp, yet looks like he could lose about an inch worth of both cable and inner, looking at the curve on the rear brake cable.
If you watch the video I posted earlier he talks through his bike. He has gone to some quite dangerous extremes, after clamping the stem, he then loosened the top cap and pulled the bung out, so he is riding an unsupported carbon steerer. He lopped the seat post off so about an inch of seatpost is within the frame.
edit: Again, didn't realise Gaz's post included a link to a source which said basically the same as what I said above, could have saved myself the effort.
When you look at the margins, maybe it was the difference between winning and loosing. He won by less than 5 seconds. Only 8 seconds seperated finishing in 1st place and not being on the podium. As you look down the results, you see people separated by fractions of a second. Matt Clinton made it on the podium in 3rd place by half a second.
) but its also the better chain line which allows for a more efficient power transfer, the in built inertia and theres probably other things too, why on earth otherwise would champion hill climbers choose it
It's defo preference. We are talking marginal gains here. Those don't seem to do the trick for Sky in the one day races either. 
doubtful that there is cheating going on in any of the segments I come up on but it is sad times when you have to do be going to this extreme.
http://app.strava.com/activities/58933728
