Testing Bontrager XXX Wheels on Belgian Cobbles

When Bontrager offered up a set of new Aeolus XXX wheels for test, we asked them to ship the wheels to Flanders, so we could test them across the cobbles. We spent a week riding the new 60mm Aeolus XXX6 and the 47mm Aeolus XXX4 over the Flandrian climbs.

[Music] when Bontrager reached out to us earlier this season to let us know the trek sega Fredo team would be debuting all new wheels at the Tour of Flanders they asked us if we’d like to test a pair at our Southern California offices we said no we wanted to test a set in the crucible of Belgian Cycling we asked them to send a set to ou Dennard the home of the köppen burg the patter burg and the nastiest cobbles and Flanders they obliged sending two examples from the extensive new lineup the Aeolus triple x6 tubeless ready rim break clincher and violas xxx for tubeless ready disc clincher the previous iteration of Aeolus wheels were already blisteringly fast and while Bontrager claims these wheels create even less drag the real-world benefits for most riders will come in four features one better Crossland performance two wider interior rim width three lighter weight and for the vastly improved braking in the rim versions during our extensive Belgian testing it was the improved crosswind performance bet immediately caught our attention through truly terrible weather with sideways freezing rain our testers both smaller riders on 53 and 54 centimeter bikes were incredibly impressed with the forty seven millimeter deep Aeolus xxx four and sixty millimeter deep Aeolus triple x6 our test rider on the sixty millimeter wheels said super stable in the wind both cross in front which is usually a problem pairing my 130 pound body with aero equipment the wider interior rim now enlarged to 21 millimeters versus the 19 millimeter of the original Aeolus line combined with the wheels tubeless setup provided a beautifully confident contact patch when paired with 25 28 or even thirty two millimeter tires at lower pressures something our test riders got ample experience with over the nastiest cobbles Flanders had to offer today is deep carbon rims we’re already fast but new wheels are continually marketed with vanishingly small arrow gains touted as huge breakthroughs but where many deep carbon rims can really improve is on the scale and here Bontrager has done a masterful job of shedding grams across the line at 1530 grams the set of Aeolus xxx 6 we tested for example are more than 100 grams lighter than comparable wheels from zip or Reynolds it truly increases the wheels versatility making them much livelier in the hills letting you bring a narrow advantage to the hilly estava vents the disc brake Aeolus xxx four wheels stopped as expected phenomenally well in the wet and dry but it was the new textured brake track on the rim braking Aeolus xxx six we tested that was most surprising Bontrager has taken the one aspect where its wheels lagged behind the competition and left to the front of the class the new laser etched laser control track is stunningly good providing powerful smooth progressive and easily modulated braking that is essentially immune to the weather and the Belgian spring gave us plenty of opportunity to test that fact the entire lineup of the new Bontrager Eolas XXX wheels is massively impressive but it’s not the new Aero improvements that get us excited it’s the lower weights the impressive crosswind performance and the new laser-etched braking track that steal the show at 2400 dollars a set a olace xxx wheels are not cheap but knowing they are manufactured in the US and provide not just phenomenal speed but make all that speed easy to manage with lower weight than most of the competition takes a bit of a sting out of the price tag [Music]