Originally Posted by moxfyre

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


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).


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!