Jett is a little 11 year old who loves to run, surf and ride. As a result, he's pretty bloody quick in Triathlon, even riding his MTB!
Keen for more speed, he came to us and asked what we could do. We found an old 650c road bike on the local classifieds, and stripped and rebuilt it with smarter and lighter parts (but nothing too special, as he will grow out of this bike pretty soon).
Being in an age group where he's not yet allowed to use aero bars, fast wheels and tyres are his only real aero advantage. We found some nice 650c rims and skip laced the front so that he's riding 18 plain gauge spokes (plenty stiff for his 32kg!) and laced a triplet pattern on the rear - for 18 spokes on the driveside and 9 on the offside. After calculating the spoke bracing angles and target tensions, double butted spokes were best suited to the driveside, and plain gauge for the offside. This should keep lateral wheel stiffness more even.
So, there are 27 less spokes in the wind. Every little bit counts, and he set the fastest bike leg in his first Tri on the bike. A great outcome.