I was afraid too, and I'm still cautious, but after two years, I'm a lot more confident than I was when I started. My balance is better too, I'm sure. Pretty much the only thing that scares me now is traffic.

I stayed mostly in the middle gear at first too. There was just too much to think about to worry about gears, and my childhood bike experience was all on one-speed bikes. Then I started practicing shifting when I didn't need to, and that helped a lot.

Kris

This is a reasonable fear, in my opinion! We're not as close to the ground as we were when we were kids, and we don't bounce quite as well as we did back then either. We also don't heal as fast if we damage ourselves. The more you practice, though, the less you'll worry about it, I think!

Karen in Boise[/QUOTE]