One brake Single-Speed fools

Im not saying its a good idea, but was reading a bit of sheldon the other day and he writes that the back brake is pretty much redundant in terms of stopping force with a distance 2x that of the front brake. the front is at optimum stopping power when the back wheel is at the point of almost lifting off the ground with minimal traction. The back brake comes in to effect as a stopping force for times when it would induce a front wheel skid such as wet or icey conditions. mainly as you cant recover from front skids. so i suppose for the fair weather cyclist the only front brake option could be argued as sufficient. Also raises the no brake fixed question as most argue the front brake serves as use in the wet or times when rear wheel skid traction is low... im not ready to ditch mine, but its interesting that even in the dry you are accepting the fact that your brake distance is at least double from not riding a front brake.

Yup he does say that and it's completely true, 95% of the time on a normal road bike I would only use the front brake as it provides the most efficient method of stopping. However, if you are not riding fixed, you do really need a back brake. Front is fine and dandy on grippy surfaces, but if the front starts to slip you better ease up immediately and punch the back if you plan on stopping... if you have no back then you're in trouble...