can't beat physics. Stopping with a front brake will always be faster than stopping by locking up the rear tire.

The only guy I know who I feel like can truthfully safely ride brakeless is a guy who's been riding FG for years, and even he will admit its not the safest thing to do.

My city has a giant weekly critical mass, and everyone who knows anything knows that you never bring out your nice bike because you're going to get hit by some brakeless fixie hipster whos riding without any foot retention. I can easily say 75% of the accidents on those rides are due to people running brakeless or not using their brakes when trying to stop.

Basically, its like me driving my car without brakes, while using the transmission to stop. sure its possible, but not safe for me or others at all.

To make me sound like a mr no fun, I do have a brakeless FG bike, but i only exclusively use it on the local tracks and trails where there is no car or pedestrian traffic, and lots of run off room in case of an emergency.

And a personal note, after riding one of my bikes and having a chain brake with only a cheap front brake to try to stop me, I made sure that on all my bikes have top of the line braking components.