Chelsea Brown reviews IronDevo PLUTO brakes!

Product: Irondevo 140 gram CNC brakes

Model No/Article No.: PLUTO/BE07001

Reviewer: Chelsea Brown

I am really happy with these brakes. They are more like Shimano brakes in that they are very smooth and fluid during braking. They are not as grabby and mechanical-feeling as my Sram Force brakes were. This smoothness of braking is very nice for lighter riders such as myself. During bumpy descents I get bounced around a lot and I come out of my saddle. I also run the risk of going over the front of the handlebars if I brake suddenly on a bumpy descent. This is why I really like the smooth braking power of the irondevo’s. They grab smoothly and evenly, giving me confidence to brake whenever I need to, even if the pavement is rough. They are so smooth that the rider can hardly even feel them working, but it is obvious that they work quite well when they bring the rider smoothly to a stop even when needing to stop quickly. Recently I descended down King’s Mountain –a steady descent of 5 miles at 5-9% slopes. There are several U-turns on this descent and the brakes handled very well. They gave me the confidence I needed and I was descending so quickly that I passed a car on the descent. One of the turns on this descend was not marked well and surprised me by turning in quickly when I didn’t expect it. I was able to grab a handful of brakes and the brakes handled it so smoothly that I was able to slow down when I was already in the turn and was able to stay in my own lane. Had I been using brakes that were less smooth I may have become unbalanced by “grabby” brakes. I am very happy with these brakes.

 I also get lots of comments on how nice the brakes look. The red brakes draw a lot of attention. These CNC brakes look really cool.

The packaging is very professional and looks great. The packaging gives a very good first impression of the product. It may be helpful, for people who are not familiar with brake installation to have a small guide on how to install brakes and brake pads.

Installation went very easily. I installed them myself. I found the brake pads interesting because they are extra long. This means there is more braking surface which makes sense. The brake pads are held in place by little metal pin instead of screw. At first I didn’t like this design because I am not accustomed to this design. But, after changing them out a couple of times, I realized that they are just as fast if not faster to replace than the normal screw. All I have to do is pop them out with pliers. It takes me only a minute to change out the brake pads. Also, this feature is nice because sometimes the screw strips out on brakes that have a screw holding the brake pad in. With these brakes there is no screw to strip out, and installation of new brake pads is quick.

My only suggestion is to include instructions on how to change out the brake pads, since the pin design is unusual. I also suggest including a couple of extra pins in case the pins holding the brakes in place are accidentally lost. A customer might accidentally misplace or drop the pins during installation of new brakes.

Thank you for a quality product!