Maelstrom 

Just curious what other peoples banes are. Personally I have always had a fear of heights. I have a difficult time with drops and high skinnies.

I am mostly worried about breaking my forks but the fear is still there. Just curious.

fubar5

I fear fear.

Rotifer

My biggest fear is hurting my bike, wrecking on pavement is a distant second.

Dirtgrinder

I'm always worried about my knees. I feel like my knees are my life now.

And Rotifer, Please, I implore you; Get some decaf for your banana.

Trigger1

Dogs, you know big, man-eating, snarling, ill-tempered, fast running, dogs.

I happen to love the thrusting banana!

CycleMON

1. Not being able to ride my bike.
2. Crashing on pavement.

Pharcyde

Fear 1--riding down my favorite trail (tiger mountain), slowing down to rest legs and getting pounced on my a cougar.

Fear 2--riding down my local trail, slowing down to rest the legs, and getting chased by a naked bum or jumped by a disgruntled teen.

Moral of the story--dont slow down!!!

Bike Collector

We have 1 trail that has hard, heavy decline, downhill, sharp, switchbacks. Seems like they're impossible. (we'll see tomorrow). I never can make it through them. And then their are the legendary "Steps" of said Chubb trail in St. Louis, MO.

killerasp

I have fear for many things. But if i dont do it whatever it may be, i will hate myself forever till i do it. Wheter its going off a 15' drop or talking with a hottie, if i dont do it, im gonna regret it for the rest of my life.

Dwagenheim

Great thread.
On trails, my #1 is going down too steep or too fast and hurting myself in a fall.
I threw out my shoulder in a fall on inline skates after a relatively serious injury free history during organized football and wrestling. So I tend to be wary on tough trails knowing I can do some damage to myself getting tossed off my bike.

On the road, my worst fear should be cars, but if I were to be constantly fearful, I wouldn't be able to survive out there. So I just try to be careful. I'd say my worst fear on the road is having something important on my bike break at an inconvenient time (but isn't that always when something happens?).


Dave

SellingEngland

One trail I ride goes out 40 miles and out that far there is nothing...always wonder what would happen if I wreck bad out there.

on the road I fear teenagers and old people in cars.. the former don't care and the latter can't see you over the steering wheel.

Maelstrom 

I'll add another one. Brakes. I own crappy hayes mechs which have failed a number of times (either they work REALLY well or stop working they BLOW). On really steep sections or rocky sections I fear these brakes because I am never sure what they intend to do.

a2psyklnut

Riding through spider webs and wondering where the creator of that web ended up. One of my vents in my helmet perhaps? Down the collar of my neck? On my camelback?

I'm not talking about small spiders, I'm talking about the LARGE, yellow and black banana spiders indiginous to Florida.

The thought of an arachnid crawling on my person gives me the creeps just thinking about it.

It actually happened once. I was riding some singletrack and a group of 4 or 5 riders were approaching in the opposite direction, being alone, I swerved off the trail between two pine trees. I barely felt the web brush my right arm, I looked down and saw this banana spider about the 3/4 the size of my hand crawling off my glove onto my forearm. YIKES! I simulataneously threw down my bike, brushed the thing off and started the "Hybie Gybie Dance" You know the one!

L8R

Rich

I have a simular fear of wasps that seem to be able to track my every move dagnabbit!!!

Rich

Bokkie

My ankles are my biggest fear. I've broken both before and sprained them more times than I can count and I have a bad feeling that one day my bike is going to kiss my butt goodbye and for my ankle it will be hasta la vista baby - again!

Maelstrom 

Thats damn creepy. The only thing we really have here is bears. And they are really easy to deal with

a2psyklnut

So, I'm curious. How do you "easily" deal with bears? I think I'd rather deal with spiders than a charging bear. Yikes!

L8R

Maelstrom 

Bears really don't charge. The only time they ever get angry is when cubs are involved. Bears 'lumber'. They look around and act lazy. They don't care about humans in the least. It is like they know they could kick our asses but can't be bothered because we suck to eat.

As for a mother and cubs. If you ever ever see cubs anywhere. Walk away slowly show no interest and then when you are far enough away move quicker. Mothers become seriously pissed and that is usually when they get violent. I live near the base of a mountain and saw 3 cubs going by on the porch at the front of the house. About 2 minutes later the mother strolled behind. All just looking for food. If we had tried to play with the cubs (as mom wasn't in site) we would have been dead or at least maimed.

Funnier storey. One time I heard a knocking at my door (where we keep bear proof garbage cans I might add) I open the door and see a VERY large male bear trying to get into the garbage. The knocking had been his big ass at my door. I froze for one second while he turned a looked at me. All I could do was shut the door and turn WHITE. Funny part is I scared the bear and we saw him walk away.

In the end bears, while wild, are tame. Just don't feed them or go near the cubs and the likely hood of an attack is very tiny.

No big creepy spiders falling down my back...yeah that would suck

Pharcyde

aside from biking there is one thing that freaks me out more than anything. BEES!!!!!

Has anyone ever somehow ridden into a nest or stepped in one beside the trail?

RacerX

Damn, thats a good one!
I get freaked sometimes thinking about accidentally swallowing a bee. I had a close call when a bee bounced off my teeth while I was coming down a trail.

A bee flew into my sunglasses and bit me under the eye- that freaked me out pretty good!

Pharcyde

Yeah, having a bee hit you in the face or fly in your mouth is not a good thing. But what about stepping on a nest.............all the sudden theres bees everywhere, crawling in your hair and in your clothes, stining you....................that would suck, and its always one of my greatest fears while biking, hiking, fishing, hunting etc.....

pathtek

Im really scared of spiders, too. We have a species of yellow and black spider indigenous to my area, but we call em garden spiders...theyre kinda cool to watch, but i wouldnt want one on me. What really gets me are the furry ones, though...tarantulas, wolf spiders, and trap door spiders. A wolf spider caused me to crash my jeep intop a telephone pole once. he was crawling along the ceiling and dropped down in between my sunglasses and face!!! AHHHHHHH F***************K!!!!!!!! Wham!!!! $8K in damges to the front end of my then 8 month old sahara edition. I really hate spiders. By the way, I killed the spider and his body was about the size of a Kennedy Half Dollar.

Ouch !

The dreaded Wasp or bee that flys into my Crash Helmut, but now that winter is coming that's a thing of the past.

In general it's the car you can hear coming up fast from behind and you know that it's not going to make much effort to go around you.

Joe Gardner

I am deathly afraid of being trampled by a Moose. If you have never seen one up close, your in for a surprise. These 10 foot tall; 1,500 pound monsters are scary!

Sure, there cute when looking at them out of your car window in Yellowstone; not so when one is standing on your single track trail, in the middle of an alpine meadow.

I have had two run ins with meese (sp?) while mtn biking. My first incident was a few years ago, i was coming around a blind corner rather fast on some great high elevation single track. The moose was just a few yards off the trail, looking right at me. I slammed on the breaks, and stopped about 20 feet short of the beast, face to face. The rack on this guy was huge, atleast 4' across, I would guess that he was close to 8' tall at the shoulder. I just stood there and watched, waiting for him to trample me to death, i decided to sing to him in all my glory "nice moose, don’t kill me… nice moose, don’t kill me.". After about 5 minutes of just watching each other, he turned left, and walked off into the woods.

Last year while riding my bike to the trail head on a access / forest service road i somehow found myself and a few friends between a mother moose, and her calf. From what i understand, this is not a good place to be! I looked at the mom, then the calf, and back at the mom. Then the calf started to cry! "Wahhh Wahhh" (ok, maybe not cry, it was making some kind of noise, and it wasn’t good for us) After a few minutes of the crying, the mother moose walked just a few feet from us, next to the calf, and right into an aspen grove. Rather then go around the trees, she walked right into them; you could hear small branches and trees snap as she made her way into the woods. The power was amazing, we found a few 4" aspens broken like match sticks.

Of yeah, spiders freak me out too.

fubar5

I am a wuss when it comes to any stinging insect.