Born from a nearly 400-year-old company that got its start making steel wire for industries like watchmaking, DT Swiss is now both a marquee consumer cycling brand and partner to OEM companies and makes enough spokes every year to circle the globe.
Alex Hunt
When it comes to cycling brands with history, your mind probably goes to the likes of Campagnolo, Bianchi, or even Orbea. These brands have been around almost as long as the bicycle itself. Orbea, for example, began as a gun manufacturer in 1840, predating mass-produced bicycles by some 30 years.
There is, however, one brand has been around longer than all of these brands combined. DT Swiss’s roots lay in the early 17th century – 1634 to be precise – some 230 years before the first mass-produced bicycles would start entering society. In the 391 years since, the business has not travelled far, remaining in Biel, Switzerland, even if the exact location and premises have been updated.
Long before the DT Swiss we know was churning premium wheels out of Biel, the business operated under the name of Vereinigte Drahtwerke or Tréfileries Réunie (both of which mean United Wireworks), founded by a physicist named Ludwig Scharandi. Here, it began operating as a wireworks for multiple industries, including Swiss watchmaking. In 1934, this outfit officially began devoting some of its production capacity to the creation of bicycle spokes and rims.
In 1994, the cycling division of United Wireworks began life as its own entity, taking the D from Drahtwerke and the T from Tréfileries, paired with the company’s location to become DT Swiss. Interestingly, a direct translation of the German Drahtwerke and the French Tréfileries both mean “wireworks,” so you could argue that DT Swiss named itself twice, which the company says is a nod to its hometown’s bilingual culture.
In 2025, DT Swiss is a global brand, and although its headquarters are firmly seated in its historical hometown, it also has manufacturing sites in the US, Taiwan, and Poland, along with offices in France, Germany, and Japan.
On a recent trip to Switzerland, I was invited to take a tour around the brand’s headquarters, where the majority of its spokes are made, along with some hub components, and small-scale wheelbuilding.
“Regarding the recall, there is no additional information towards the test process. We have built up specific test stations using the experience from our performance test centre. It was important that these test stations were identical all over the world to achieve reliable results within the conducted quality test. Our teams are sitting around the globe in all time zones and by this we can answer e-mails and registrations in a time-near manner, within 24 hours/one working day. Within a short term, we set up the official Product Safety Recall document (after the first “Stop-Use Notice”), created dedicated teams, set up the testing procedures and the complete logistics behind these quality tests. Our testing centres have started the quality tests for wheels already.”
120 spokes per minute
What you might not expect when arriving at the facility is that 90% of the brand’s total annual spoke production takes place in Switzerland. The other 10% is mostly produced in Taichung City, Taiwan or its US facility in Grand Junction, Colorado for OEM builds; however, all of the brand’s bladed spokes can be traced back to Biel.
All spokes begin as simple wire, with spools of different gauges lined up on the factory floor, ready for processing. In total, the Biel facility works its way through 40,000 kilometres of wire each year, enough to circle the earth at the equator. However, this is far from the facility’s capacity; in the bicycle boom during the COVID-19 pandemic, it converted 60,000 kilometres of wire into spokes. DT Swiss makes all of its spokes to order, matching production to demand.
There are two different production lines, one making standard straight-gauge (Champion) and double-butted (Competition) spokes and another making the brand’s more premium bladed spokes.
The first machine I visit, which produces straight-gauge spokes, operates with metronomic precision. Manufacturing around 120 spokes per minute, in the 10 minutes we spent standing around the machine, enough spokes for around 50 wheels came into existence.
The process begins by straightening wire from the large industrial spools. This is achieved by precisely bending the wire to return it to a straight section, a crucial step for ensuring quality.
An essential part of any spoke production is ensuring that the spoke starts the manufacturing process straight, in both axes. Passing the wire through a series of rollers in both the horizontal and vertical axes makes sure the spoke is perfectly straight before it is cut to length.
Once straightened, the machine feeds the wire through and makes a rough first cut to bring the wire down to a manageable spoke length. As soon as the wire is cut, it begins its journey, propelled by helical rollers through the production process.
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