Scared in Group Rides

[Catrin]

Crankin - thank you for your comment about taking your right hand off the bar and still having issues with drinking from your bottle. I've chosen to not even attempt to learn to do the latter (I know I wouldn't drink enough), but it's been a bit troubling that I've so many problems taking my right and off the bar. I can do anything with my left - and I am VERY much right-handed. It helps to know that there are those with much longer experience who also has the same issue.

[OakLeaf]

The last and most difficult part of retraining my braking habits after last year's faceplant has been learning to drink left-handed. Now, granted I haven't ridden nearly as much in the past year as I had been recently ... but it took probably 1,000 miles before I could even replace the bottle in the cage without looking, and it still feels very unnatural. I have to think about it every time, and I still catch myself reaching for my bottle with my right hand.

[Crankin]

Catrin, I am also right handed, but I naturally do a lot of things with my left hand first, as well as my left foot. I do attempt to continually improve my signaling with the right, but I will never attempt the bottle with the right; I can barely do it with the left. I think one thing that scared me is that when i first started riding, DS asked me to pass him a sip of my bottle as he was coming toward me in the opposite direction on his cyclocross bike, which had no cages for bottles. We both slowed, I got the bottle out, he drank, but when he handed it back, I crashed, putting it back in the holder. I was going maybe 6 mph on a mtb, on the road. Five days later, I woke up with my knee the size of a balloon, and I had to have it drained. I used a Camelbak for like 6 years after that, until it started to bother me. If it's a very hot day, and I'm doing a long ride, I still will use the Camelbak for water and put Nuun or Accelerade in my bottles. But, I actually haven't done that in a long time.