You previously stated it was based on ride time.
I already addressed how ride time and cycle time are related...
Sure. They can send a train out. Wait for it to come all the way back. Wait an extra five minutes and then send out another train. In that case, ride time and cycle time would be wildly different.
But they tend not to do that. They tend to send out a vehicle as soon as they can. Which makes Ride Time and Cycle Time theoretically the same (operationally, it may be off due to ineffeciency, but we tend to be talking THRC when we talk about a rides capacity rather than it's OHRC).
You're focusing solely on the cycle of an individual specific train including how long it hangs out in the station. Which is accurate to do so if there aren't any extra trains. If there are extra trains, they go out while others sit in the station. They send out more people (dispatch time) than the cycle of a specific train would indicate. I assumed in my THRC that there was an extra train or two and that reload wouldn't slow down each dispatch when it became available.