Originally Posted by treechunk
In direct response to your first question, I think lots of the people in the messenger scene gravitate towards a brakeless fixed gear because it's a cultural thing as well as simply having less parts to break. There are always fast people on all sorts of bikes. Some people are so fast they'd school you on a mountainbike with knobbies. Serious roadies, given equal skills, would stomp the **** out of the field in most alleycats. Fixed gears, by nature, are slower than an equivalent road bike. Shifting was invented because it helps you go faster.
Philosophy and feelings don't change the laws of physics.
Yes gears will make you go faster for sure. That is why the TDF involves gears these days.
However, your post was talking about brakes vs. no brakes (your drive train still is one though) and that was the point I was talking too. I believe the same fixed wheel bicycle (no gears on those remember) can be ridden as fast with a handbrake as it can without a handbrake by the same skilled rider.