Why do you not have brakes?

Today as I was locking my bike to the bike rack, I saw another biker approaching the bike rack at a high speed. Instead of using his brakes to slow down he was using his shoes to slow down. It looked scary at first because it looked like he was going to crash into the rack. When he finally stopped, we had this exchange:

Me: "Do you not have brakes, or something?"

Him: "No, and I haven't used brakes in months now"

Me: "Why? Did they ... break?" followed by this gesture (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞

He didn't even look at me and just walked away.