Introduction to Advanced Wheelbuilding

I am an autodidact wheelbuilder. Only after a few years did I attend the DT Swiss Academy... where I learned quite a lot of useful stuff, by the way. I live in Switzerland, and it takes me 2 hours to get to the DT Swiss International Center in Biel, where they invent all their products and manufacture all their spokes for the world! So yeah... it took me quite some time to finally go there. I guess I just like to learn on my own.

It takes a lot of effort and research to learn wheelbuilding. There are no books or reference centers where everything is laid out and ready for you. I had to test, make mistakes, learn, try again and again, and look for confirmation on the internet...

And since I love every type of wheel, I want to know everything about them! From heavy motor hubs to super-light racing wheels, I’m a generalist. I love wheels.

When I went to the DT Swiss Academy, I realized they are very good—extremely good—but in the DT Swiss area of expertise. And yes, it’s broad... but it doesn’t cover everything. They won’t teach you the little details that change everything. Those tricks come from experimenting with lots of different wheels from various brands—old, new, cheap, expensive, with weird hubs or whatever crazy designs engineers have invented.

My customers often come to me with their spokes in one hand, the hub and rim in the other, and say, “Two mechanics couldn’t build this wheel.” And indeed, this “simple” wheel is complicated. I had to think through every tiny detail to get it right. It might look like nothing in the end, but it takes a lot of knowledge and careful work.

So, I decided to share what I’ve learned. Since I’ve fallen into every possible trap several times, maybe I can help you avoid some of them. There will be a series of chapters on what I call “Advanced Wheelbuilding.” I won’t cover basic knowledge—you can find that in Roger Musson’s brilliant book The Wheelbuilding Book. This book is simple and complete and will help you build a lot of wheels. But for a pro wheelbuilder, it doesn’t cover everything.

I thought that advanced stuff could be organized in one place, and that’s what this website is for... I hope.

This website is also a way for me to organize my thoughts and write down knowledge for myself. After all, I’m still new in the wheelbuilding world, with only a hundred wheels built. But they’ve all been very different. Every time I learn something new, I’ll put it here.

Finally, you’ll see that I write and publish directly. It might be a bit of a pain for you because the chapters are unfinished, without illustrations, and written in my terrible “Frenglish.” But it will slowly improve. When a chapter is satisfactory, I’ll ask ChatGPT (I am modern) and then my English-speaking bike mechanic friend Alex to help me polish it. That’s just how it is.

Now, here are some very good references that helped me a lot: