Trek Checkpoint ALR 5 Driftless

£2,700 Aluminium bike-packing-friendly gravel bike

- Oscar Huckle

3.5/5

Weight 10.44kg inc frame bag Frame 300 Series Alpha aluminium Fork Carbon Gears Shimano GRX RX800 11-speed Brakes Shimano RX810 hydraulic disc Wheels Bontrager Paradigm SL Finishing kit Bontrager Elite stem, Bontrager Elite Gravel handlebar, Easton EA70 AX, 27.2 mm seatpost, Bontrager Verse Comp saddle, Bontrager GR2 Team Issue tyres

THIS IS A BIKEPACKING-FLAVOURED offshoot of the US brand's venerable gravel bike range. It features a 1x drivetrain, dropper post and even comes with a frame bag. It sits below the carbon Checkpoint SL and SLR so that means no down-tube storage or compliance-boosting IsoSpeed. Neither do you get cable integration, but this does make maintenance easier.

It's made from Trek's lightest 300 Series Alpha Aluminium, producing a 1,490g painted frame weight (claimed) in a size 56cm, and 580g fork. Seatstays aren't dropped and the thin, round seat tube is fairly traditional. But there's a dropped driveside chainstay so you can fit 700x45mm gravel bike tyres. The carbon fibre fork is like the Checkpoint SL's.

Bossing it

You get five bosses on the downtube so you can run either two bottle cages or a cage and a frame bag. Three bosses bedeck the seattube and there's space for a bottle cage under the down-tube. There's also provision for a top-tube bag, mudguards and pannier. The fork has triple cage mounts but no routing for a dynamo.