Originally Posted by
Jeronimo_
What a fantastic diatribe! How can you be paranoid if everyone's out to get you?
Say what? I like to plan for emergencies and dangerous circumstances... especially since they mainly arise when you haven't planned for them, in my experience
Originally Posted by caloso
Get a brake. What the hell, get two and then you can use the other side of your flip-flop hub when you get tired.
Solid advice. If you want to switch between singlespeed and fixie, you'll want to have two brakes. Also, having two brakes on a road bike looks nice and symmetric and provides an extra hand position (the brake hoods).
Originally Posted by
Jeronimo_
To the OP: Just put one on and use it when you need it. I have two fixed gear bikes, one with and one without. It's not about style points, it's about what you are comfortable with, or what your legal guardians are comfortable with.
That's perfectly good advice... assuming you can judge your comfort level with perfect accuracy. I just think many experience riders will tend to be a little TOO comfortable riding brakeless. You'll think you're totally in control until you suddenly find you're about to rear-end a truck that slammed on its brakes or something. Brakes are cheap and vital when you need them (even if that's rare)... and you can ride your fixie and ignore them the rest of the time!