The reeds on a road-racer are running (Flapping, if you will) at very high frequencies for EXTENDED periods of time. This will cause excessive wear and is a good reason to run Fiberglass/Kevlar reeds (Boyseen, I think).
At Long and Fast events (Vegas to Reno), we change the reeds after each event as a precaution. We run Carbon reeds.
Manny