For over a century, the art of building a bicycle wheel has been the exclusive domain of grumpy, highly caffeinated mechanics huddled in the dark corners of bike shops, plucking spokes like harps and squinting at lateral runout. You could do it yourself, but that tended away from the direction of ‘truing’ and toward ‘destruction.’
Now Berd, which is a Minnesota-based company famous for its ultra-light polymer string spokes, says the days of the artisanal, manual wheel build are numbered. They have just released a massive update to TRUDI, their $7,000 automated tabletop wheel-truing robot.
150,000 Wheels and a Tubeless Miracle
Since launching last year, Berd claims TRUDI has already churned out over 150,000 wheels worldwide. The machine works by spinning the wheel, measuring radial and lateral runout, recording the spoke tension, and then algorithmically calculating the exact adjustments needed. It then feeds those adjustments to an automated driver, allegedly truing a wheel in five to ten minutes.
But the biggest news in this 2026 hardware update isn’t the software algorithm—it’s the new “External Driver.”
If you have ever had to replace a broken spoke or true a heavily out-of-whack modern carbon wheel, you know the absolute misery of having to strip off a perfectly seated, sealant-filled tubeless tire just to access the internal nipples. Berd’s new external driver allows the machine to adjust the exposed portion of standard nipples from the outside, exactly like a traditional spoke wrench. You can true the wheel without ever touching the tire or the rim tape. That alone is a massive, time-saving godsend for service departments.
E-Bikes and 32-Inch Absurdity
Of course, a modern cycling tech update wouldn’t be complete without bending the knee to e-bikes.
The updated TRUDI features a new “Mini Tensiometer” specifically designed to squeeze into the tight, heavily laced spoke patterns of massive e-bike hubs. Furthermore, a new Universal Hub Mounting System expands the machine’s compatibility to handle everything from standard 20-inch BMX wheels all the way up to the newly emerging, highly controversial 32-inch mountain bike standard we saw teased at the Taipei Cycle Show this week.
This Thing Costs $7,000 Though
Before you start clearing off your workbench at home, remember that TRUDI is squarely aimed at high-volume factory environments and massively profitable retail shops. With a baseline hardware cost hovering around $7,000, and monthly software subscription fees required to unlock the advanced building profiles, this isn’t a tool for the home mechanic. Or at least, not a home mechanic on a Cyclry writer’s salary.
But if you buy a pre-built wheelset anytime in the next few years, there is a very high probability it was tensioned by a robot rather than a human. Berd is actively trying to replace an experience-driven process with a data-driven one.