1) When I see someone on a conversion a little piece of me dies and god kills a kitten. Not because I think down upon them or anything, I agree with a previous posters sentiment that "oh cool, another person out having fun". Mainly I am sad because hardly anyone riding in the city on a fg bike is on a real track bike. A few messengers have real track bikes.

2) I like my front brake. I like riding fast. I ride a higher ratio and enjoy riding as fast as I can into work. Sadly it means I am generally pretty nasty for about 20 minutes until I cool down... but I love love love riding fast, and If I am going to get in the way of a car I would rather be going as close as fast to them as I can rather than just rolling along like a blonde hottie on a beach cruiser switching between the street and the sidewalk like a downhill skier. So, I like my front brake because a few times it has saved me from getting in some hairy situations.

I am sure a lot of you believe in having some sort of spiritual zen-like chi-energy flow blah blah connection with your brakeless fixie, and I have yet to experience that, but I don't feel like you guys are any better nor am I missing out on anything with my little e-lever on my bars.

I do try and use it as infrequently as possible, but sometimes after a long sprint or if I know that running that yellow might put me at risk, I need to stop fast.