Scared in Group Rides

[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.