Wheels

Bontrager Aeolus 5 TLR Disc D3

Wide, fast and disc brake ready, Bontrager aren't messing about with these

As you can tell from the name, Bontrager’s Aeolus 5 TLR D3 clinchers have an awful lot going on. All of which, it would seem, had to be worked into the name somehow.

But whether you’re a fan of addendum acronyms or not, there’s no denying Bontrager are one of the brands that, over the last few years, have earned the right to be considered one of the big boys in the wheel market.

Trek’s sponsored pro teams have been using Bontrager wheels for a while now, with Fabian Cancellara riding to his second Paris-Roubaix title spinning a set of Bontys as far back as 2011, and the Swiss has ridden their wheels every year since including a win on these very Aeolus 5s in 2013. Well, not these exactly, but their predecessors.

So what do all of the letters in the name mean? Well, that’s a good question. First off, TLR means they’re tubeless ready. Straight out of the box you can mount these with tubeless tyres – no messing about with tubeless conversion and the like required. We tested a set of the Aeolus 3s last year and were pleased to find out they’re one of the easiest tubeless sets of wheels to get going we’ve ever used.

RXUK100 - Bontrager Aeolus 5 TLR D3 Clincher Disc wheels

If you like your wheels wide, you’re going to love these. Being 27mm wide at the brake track, wheels don’t come much thicker

Next up is D3. This is Bontrager’s own rim shape, which they’ve used on all their carbon deep section wheels – both tubular and clincher. Unlike the third Mighty Ducks film, D3 here stands for ‘Dual Directional Design’, and what that means is Bontrager have designed both leading edges of the wheel – tyre edge and rim edge, because the air hits the wheel twice – to be as aerodynamically efficient as possible. And Disc? Disc means, as you’d expect, these are the disc brake version of the wheels.

Price: £2,199.98
Weight: 1,558g
Website: Trek

Elsewhere, if you like your wheels wide you’re going to love these. The 19.5mm internal width seems nice enough and should open up your tyres well, and that’s backed up by a massive 27mm width at the brake track. The trend towards wider tyres means wider rims are a wise choice, and you’ll struggle to find something that interacts better with a set of 25mm tyres – or larger – than a set of these.

Bontrager reckon a set of these come in at 1,558g, which is impressive indeed for a set of disc brake wheels – although rotors will add a little extra, of course. Added to that, disc brakes mean no rim wear, so your carbon rims will last as long as you want them to – providing you don’t crash them.