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Increasing risk to each other by riding without brakes...
Interesting choice of words "Increasing risk..."
I started riding fixed probably 15 years ago and my bikes never had a front brake. My fixed was sometimes my main bike, sometimes not but I always had one and it was always brakeless. Until a month or two ago.
I didn't fit a brake because I had a sudden epiphany about what I was doing being dangerous to myself or to anyone else, that'd probably have come had I had a single accident in that decade and a half of brakeless riding that could have been attributed to the number of brakes on my bike, or one in my 30+ years of riding everything from brakeless freewheel bmxes to double hydro disc mtbs that could be attributed to the performance of the brakes - well, maybe that one time I played polo with a coaster brake and rode into a wall but I digress...
No, I fitted a brake because it became apparent that that brake, absolutely regardless of whether it was used or not, would likely be what would save me from going to jail if someone else made a choice that involved me in the collision that ended their life.
Back to that "Increasing risk..." bit, I'm no statistician but if you take the experience of my 15 years of brakeless fixed riding (which I would imagine would be pretty analogous to the experience of many brakeless fixed riders), I think you could logically judge the risk to other people, had I chosen to continue riding brakeless, to be negligible. That I have fitted a brake has, if anything reduced the risk to other people.
Not reducing ≠ increasing.
It took me quite a while to make the decision to fit a brake. There were a lot of things that made me want to keep riding brakeless, most of which I'm not going to go into but needless to say, appearance was one of them. Familiarity another. I had done something for 15 years and had zero problems so why should I listen when everyone starts telling me I'm wrong just because its in the papers?
Anyway, I fitted a brake and I'm now riding fixed more often than ever before and enjoying it more.
TLDR, riding without a front brake isn't the end of the world, but neither is fitting one.
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M_V
@inappropriate_bike
I think this was summarised best by the philosophers Bill and Ted in their defining proposition of "be excellent to each other."
Increasing risk to each other by riding without brakes, when brakes are cheap and easy to install, is not excellent. Rather, it is bogus.