also, one never brakes on a track/fixed, one SLOWS THE FUNK DOWN....

If you want to be cool, ride without a brake.

If you want to be faster, and have more fun, ride with a brake.

I've had it both ways, and been doing it for a long time. One time my chain got to stretched out and it fell off while I was going down the house side of Constitution avenue. That is as steep as some of those steep a$$ hills in SF. I would be dead if there had been cross traffic.

Sheldon Brown convinced me that it is too much hassle to ride brakeless. Putting on a brake doesn't mean you can't skip/skid. It doesn't mean you can't add nuance to your bike handling by means of reverse input to the rear wheel. You can still do all that stuff. But from a standpoint of efficiency, what do you want to spend your energy on, going backwards or going forwards? When I'm biking I want to get somewhere efficiently. And a brake makes me more efficient. I don't have to slow down way before an intersection or on a hill to keep from getting squashed. If some stupid indecisive motorist can't decide to speed up or slow down and just gets in my way (happened twice this morning, incredible!) then I don't start to get worried about getting hit, I just lose my momentum, and thats it. And I can ride with people on road bikes easilly without making them get all worried 'cause I'm weaving all over the place and what not.

The only drawback is it ain't as pretty. And like I said to begin with, it just ain't cool. So what matters to you, form or function?

I started on a track bike with no brakes and just went real slow. I didn't get killed or anything and I rode brakeless in Washington DC for years and years. So you can do it; but the question isn't can you, but should you. I don't think it is worth it, and all this stuff about not using your brake is just pointless from my viewpoint, even though I would have defended that position recently.

i ride with a break but i don't use it simply because i haven't had the need.
i don't see what's "pointless" about that.
for me, it's an emergency out and other than that case, resisting the pedals, and the occassional skid, is more than sufficient for normal slowing down/stopping needs.

I don't get the appeal of the skid. If you've got a working brake, why wreck your tires just to take longer stopping?

For me, leg energy is for forward movement. I'm happy to let a brake do the work to slow me down. Thus, using leg energy to slow down it is pointless. I commute 150 miles a week on my fixed gear and race my gearie on the weekends. If I spend a lot of time backpedaling then that puts me on the Metro for a day to rest, or leaves me flat-footed in a race. That is pointless to me.
That said, it is a free country, do what makes you happy; I'm just sharing my viewpoint. Got a brake, go ahead and use it. The style police won't come and arrest you. If you'd rather back pedal, no one says that is against the law either. Live and let live. I'm just saying that it is stupid to have a brake and feel guilty about using it.

i'm pretty sure skidding is horribly inefficient. i just do it occassionally for fun.

go without a brake; it'll look real hip and cool when you slam into the back of a pickup truck.

really -- how can someone even ask a question like this?

I jumped in with no brake and 48*16 gearing. I picked it up real fast, then started pushing the miles, the speed, the quick stops all within 2 weeks. Now I am layed up with some messed up knees. There is good advice here, take it slow. Ride a brake and lower the gearing.

I vote for the brake. That is all.

I second the wise words of boot.

First of all, I really like flythebike's forum name.
I relate to flying the bike.
Helicopters and fixed gear bikes have more in common than I can possibly explain in this context.
Except: I have more of a sense of flight and freedom on my fixed gear bike than I do in my helicopter.

That said, I would like to talk about using back pressure on the pedals to slow the bike.

When I first rode my Pista and attempted to use my legs to brake going downhill the pedals almost launched me into space.
Talk about flying. :)

Since then I have realized that I will probably never have the strength and coordination/organization going backwards that I do going forward.
If I practiced for a thousand years, I would never have the strength, acceleration and overall grace going backwards that I have going forwards.
Just think about all the mechanics, weight distributions and articulations and it becomes clear: we have more power, acceleration and gracefullness forwards than backwards.

So, then I started looking for a neutral pedaling going downhill, just to feel all the monkey motion involved and make some sense of it.
I found that if I tried riding my pedals instead of the saddle, going downhill, something happened.
Now, I mean just riding the pedals, not trying to pedal forwards or backwards, but riding the pedals so that I took almost all of the weight off of my saddle but remained in contact with it nonetheless.

Lightbulb!
How cool.

Then I found that if I pointed my heels down just before the pedal started to rise in the back part of its circle, something else happened.

Double Lightbulb!
Extra cool.

How could it get better?

Well, then I found out if I did this ride-the-pedals thing before building up some critical speed, I could very comfortably control my speed all the way down the steepest hills.
However, if I went over a certain rpm, it quickly became too difficult and required more strength than I had.
Still, I could almost spin the cog off, backwards and I had a long heart to heart with my lbs about this; and, we put some torque to both the cog and the lock ring.
Hope I can get 'em off, now.
In any event, under a certain rpm I can control steep hills by properly riding the pedals instead of the saddle, and, above that rpm, I can do a long deceleration, but the issue remains in doubt and the process threatens to launch me into space. :)

By the way, on the day I fell, right before I fell, I spun the rear wheel backwards on the ice.
Talk about a sick feeling in the tummy.

Anyway, all of the above represents the words of a very new newbie.
I remain all ears and learning.

Couple of thoughts:

Not having a brake won’t give you superpowers.
Having a brake won’t prevent most accidents, but might make defending yourself in court easier.
Having a brake encourages irresponsible riding (this goes for me) because you can stop faster you can get away with it.
Not having a brake is not more dangerous than having a brake it is just slower and can be annoying on long descents.
There is nothing you can’t do on a fix with a brake that you can do on one without a brake.
Having a brake and not using it makes not much sense to me. There is no shame in riding with a brake (Eddy did it too).
Brakes look ugly. You get style points for not having one.

second that one. it's better to have something you don't need than to need something you don't have.

I think the REAL bottom line here is riding without a brake is illegal, riding with a brake is legal.

For me personally it's not about cool points or how quick I can stop myself without a brake. I enjoy breaking the law as my forum title suggests, but If I break the law and endager others because of it, then it's not cool. I rode for a month without a brake and loved it. It was a lot of fun, really. It slowed me down, almost made riding a chore since I couldn't ride as maniacally as I would with a brake. The brake allows me to go faster since I'm not worrying about all the sh*t that can happen out on the road. I know that if I need to stop, this is how far it will take me, EVERY time. I don't have to worry about being tired and not being able to slow myself down and possibly causing an accident and injuring others because I broke the law.

It depends entirely on where you live. In DC the law requires that the rider be capable of skidding a tire. Clearly a brake is not required to do that.