Spokes,

I'm not sure if I have a good answer for getting over fear, but I'll share some observations.

I broke my femur back in 1990 while riding my old road bike. I had no desire to get back on the bike, even though the surgeon said I could ride six months after I broke my leg. No thanks.

I got back into riding in '94, trained for a century, then did a weekend bike tour. It was fun and all, but I found that I was leary of turns, and descents were absolutely nerve-wracking. So, I put the bike up again -- sure, I'd ride occassionally, but there wasn't much passion there.

Last year, I decided to it would be fun to have a mountain bike, so I bought one, took a few WOMBAT clinics, and got a little bit comfortable with the idea that you don't break your femur everytime you fall. I tried a few "crazy" descents off road, and got used to the idea of the bike being "loose" (as in, not under my complete, rigid control.)

This year, I decided to get in shape by doing a century, which meant dusting off my road bike. I signed up for the Cinderella group training rides, where they did some teaching on skills (including my bugaboo - descents). I also bought a new bike, which has fabulous brakes! My first descents were tentative, but I've improved.

I credit the group rides for my improvement. Yes, the skills training helped, and yes, I just feel safer with a group. But the big benefit for me is that I am a lot less likely to flake out if I'm riding with a group. Plus, they determined the route -- on my own, I might opt out of a route with a lot of descents. The more I got out there, the more confident I became, and I got better at descending, which, in turn, boosted my confidence. A very nice cycle to get into. Oh, and the new brakes helped a lot -- confidence inspiring to know that you can stop without exerting a ton of pressure on the brakes.

Another thing that helped with descents was that I applied some knowledge I've gotten from another passion of mine -- high performance driving. I found that a lot of the principles crossed over -- apexing the turns, weight transfer, etc. It was kind of fun to experiment -- I was thinking about experimenting instead of how worried I was about crashing.

I know this is long, so I guess I would summarize it like this:

* slowly increase your comfort zone
* figure out ways that will help you keep at it -- seat time helps a lot, and for me, the group rides helped to increase seat time
* think about ways to improve your technique to avoid the cause of your crash

-- Melissa