Afraid of stopping and down hills

[KnottedYet]

Take off the clipless pedals, put platforms back on the bike.

Take yourself (alone!) and the bike to a big empty grassy field, preferably with hills. Ride fast, slow, in tight curves, in straight lines. Start and stop a million times. Ride up a hill, ride down the hill, stop halfway up the hill and halfway down. Ride slowly down the hill, ride fast down the hill, pedal down the hill like a wild racing star! Scoot around out of the saddle and standing on one pedal. Scoot on the other pedal. Ride for hours in that field, and do every single thing that scares you a zillion times.

When that gets easy, do it all again with the clipless pedals on the bike.

If you feel like you will fall, just fall! Seriously, let yourself fall in the grass if you start to truly fall over!

It is amazing how much you can learn from riding alone in the grass.