[[{“value”:”
We’ve all been drooling over them since the first spy photos started emerging in early 2025, and now the Brembo GR-PROs have finally landed at FlowHQ for testing.
Our first glimpses of these brakes came aboard the Specialized Gravity team’s race bikes, ridden by Loïc Bruni, Finn Iles, and Jordan Williams. Back then, they wore Specialized branding. Now, the Brembo name is out in the open, and a production version is on its way to the public. They’ve certainly had a proper workout at the sharp end of World Cup downhill, but we’re keen to see how that translates to our own riding.
We haven’t yet learned Australian pricing and availability. We’ll update this article with those details, including where you can buy them, as soon as we know more. But for now, let’s dive into the nitty-gritty details on these shiny red stoppers.
An overview of the Brembo GR-PRO brakes
First things first, Brembo will be offering the GR-PRO brakes as a complete kit. Our test package came with two calipers, two levers, hoses, two additional pairs of pads, mineral oil, a bleed kit and a few small parts. Rotors are sold separately.
Brembo’s product pages currently give conflicting information about whether the mineral oil and bleed kit are included, so we’ll confirm the contents of the Australian retail package when pricing and availability are announced.
The brakes use Brembo’s own mineral oil, which, according to the brand, provides stable viscosity throughout the operating temperature range.
Only one pad compound is available: semi-metallic. The same goes for the colour: red. Although Brembo has displayed various colours, such as blue, purple and orange, at trade shows throughout the year, we’re yet to hear if or when these will be available.
Key details
- Intended use | Enduro, eMTB, downhill
- Colour | Red
- Rotor sizes | 200mm & 220mm
- Rotor thickness | 2.3mm
- Operating fluid | Brembo mineral oil
- Caliper pistons | 4 x 18mm
- Lever piston | 9mm
- Adjustability | Reach, bite point, leverage ratio
Brembo GR-PRO lever
The lever assembly, or master cylinder as Brembo calls it, is likely the most interesting part of the package. It’s a single-sided design, similar to Shimano or Hope, meaning you can’t simply flip the levers over to swap the brakes from left to right. Each assembly is held in place by a single hinged clamp. The lever blade is long and straight, with a distinct hook at the end and a slightly rough overall texture.
There’s plenty of adjustability built in, which is likely one of the biggest selling features of the GR-PROs. The lever blade has a knurled ring with 40 positions of reach adjustment, and out front is a seven-position free-stroke adjuster to fine-tune the bite point. More interesting is the leverage ratio adjuster, which has three positions: soft, medium and hard, allowing users to fine-tune the relationship between lever effort and braking response.
Related:
Brembo GR-PRO caliper
The caliper uses a two-piece design, with the forged halves joined together by two large bolts. On the inside are four 18mm pistons, the same diameter as those in the revised SRAM Maven B1.
The levers and calipers are linked together via Brembo-designed braided stainless steel hoses, which have a PTFE inner core.
Brembo GR-PRO rotors
The final piece of the puzzle is the Brembo discs, available in either 200mm or 220mm. The design of the 2.3mm-thick stainless steel rotors is somewhat reminiscent of Galfer’s Wave rotors, without the wavy external shape.
One detail worth highlighting is the size of the braking track and pads. Brembo specifies an 18mm-tall braking track, paired with a 43.5mm-long brake pad. That’s a sizeable contact patch, and something we’re keen to explore once we’ve had more time on the brakes.
Related:
Installing the Brembo GR-PRO brakes
We’ve fitted the GR-PROs to our Pivot Shuttle AMP’d, and first impressions in the workshop have been very positive. Everything feels nicely made, installation was straightforward and the bleed went smoothly. There’s certainly no shortage of power apparent from the initial setup, though we’ll save the proper assessment for some trail time.
The only real snag was integrating our Shimano Di2 controller with the supplied mounts. Brembo includes a generous assortment of mounting hardware for bringing other controls onto the brake clamps, but the pieces supplied didn’t play nicely with our particular controller.
The issue is the mounting bolt arrangement. On our Di2 controller, the bolt passes through the controller and threads into its mount, rather than passing through the mount and threading into the shifter. The supplied hardware didn’t accommodate that arrangement. Brembo’s FAQ currently lists SRAM-style integration, with a Shimano-compatible version still in development, so it’s something to check if you’re planning a similarly tidy cockpit.
And then there’s the red. Standing over the bike, there’s quite a lot of it looking back at you, particularly across the back of the lever bodies. It’ll take us a little while to get used to. We’d love a few alternative colours, but Brembo clearly isn’t interested in blending in. Good on them.
What do the Brembo GR-PRO brakes signify for the industry?
Scroll through the marketing copy on Brembo’s website, particularly the FAQ section, and you’ll see plenty about its ‘systemic approach’ and components working in ‘perfect synergy’. There’s no shortage of confidence in the claims about power, consistency and heat management. It’s a wild read.
What stood out to us, though, is their confidence. For perspective, when SRAM launches a brake, just about every adjustment, each bit, and mechanism gets a name. SRAM does this well: it gives riders identifiable features to understand and helps explain what they’re paying for.
Brembo has been comparatively restrained with the feature names, or they just don’t fuss about those details. Reach adjustment is reach adjustment. The leverage ratio settings are soft, medium and hard. Instead, the marketing goes all-in on the idea that the whole system works exceptionally well because every component has been developed together. There’s still plenty of marketing bluster, but to us it feels like the Brembo name is expected to do a fair bit of the talking.
And it’s a name with some weight behind it; though we’re not experts in their heritage, we get it. Brembo knows exactly where it stands in motorsport, and its brakes are familiar territory on supercars and hypercars from the likes of Ferrari, Lamborghini and Bugatti.
It may seem perplexing that the company even considered jumping into the relatively niche world of high-end, gravity-focused mountain bike brakes. But it’s an interesting vote of confidence in the sport, and another specialist from outside cycling bringing its expertise into the mix. While global giants such as Yamaha, Bosch and DJI/Avinox have been extending their reach into the eMTB world, cycling-specific brands still dominate much of the component market.
Interestingly, the GR-PROs aren’t mind-blowingly unique. The leverage ratio adjustability is somewhat rare, but it’s certainly not an industry first. Without digging too far into this, it may just mean the bike industry has been doing things fairly darn well for quite some time.
Time to clock up some rides aboard the GR-PROs. We’ll report back once we’ve put them properly to work, and update this article with Australian pricing, availability and where to buy them as those details come through.
Oh, and check out these mad old MotoGP bikes with vintage Brembo brakes we spotted at a museum recently, some heritage right there!
The post Brembo GR-PRO Brakes | A closer look at the red stoppers everyone’s talking about appeared first on Flow Mountain Bike.
“}]]
[[{“value”:”We’ve all been drooling over them since the first spy photos started emerging in early 2025, and now the Brembo GR-PROs have finally landed at FlowHQ for testing. Our first glimpses of these brakes came aboard the Specialized Gravity team’s race bikes, ridden by Loïc Bruni, Finn Iles, and Jordan Williams. Back then, they wore
The post Brembo GR-PRO Brakes | A closer look at the red stoppers everyone’s talking about appeared first on Flow Mountain Bike.”}]] Read More Flow Mountain Bike
#flowmtb #mtb