SantaCruzRiderFear is personal, but I can tell you how I have reacted to similar situations:
I dropped my bike once during my first month or so of riding. My reaction was to be totally pissed, followed by days of practice riding over the same wheel trap where I fell. Eventually, handling that specific trap became second nature. Did my heart skip a beat everytime I later rode it? Probably, but I no longer felt afraid.
Lastly, I don’t ignore the fear. Several years into riding, I found myself living in Guam where rainstorms are frequent, the wet roads blossom algae that turns them unbelievably slick and the skills of drivers is uncommonly low. At the time, my wife was pregnant with our first son and I began to feel real fear around riding. Part of it was fear of crashing and getting hurt, but it was also fear of getting killed and not being around to see my son born and to support my family. My wife never said a word against my riding, but I sold my bike and temporarily gave up riding.
I don’t look at it as being too afraid to ride. It was that I was too smart to ignore rational fear. Everyone needs to decide what’s right for themself and their given situation.
