Originally Posted by Maelochs

Simplest thing ... look ahead, not down. Learn to do that. if you are looking down you won't have time to avoid the little things ... and it won't matter because you will die.

Would ride as a passenger in a car with a driver who only looked ten feet ahead? Would you let your children (assuming you like your kids, of course)?

Raise the stem, shorten the stem if needed. Ride on the hoods or the drops, Practice. I am not joking. if you only look ten feet ahead you will be a statistic. At the speed things happen on the road, you need max field of vision.

On the way there i strongly recommend suburban neighborhood riding. you will see enough pavement cracks and storm grates, cars parked in the road, kids running out of driveways, to give you enough riding challenge to give you some confidence and also some safe miles.

"Bike handling" is a loose term that basically means "not falling over" and "going around obstacles without crashing." if I were you I would practice riding on smooth grass, smooth pavement, and also the transition between the two. I would recommend doing a few panic stops every day---practice stopping as hard as you can, see if you can lock up the back wheel ... you will develop instincts which could save your life.

I would practice doing tight-radius turns. Try to do a u-turn in one lane of a road.

Riding on grass and slightly uneven turf will help your confidence because the bike will bounce a little, and you will learn to relax and let it ... to Ride the bike, and not lock it in a death grip ....

You can also ride slowly on packed earth, even with really hard skinny tires. This is great because you gain confidence, and if the soil shifts a little, you will instinctively keep the bike upright and be thrilled at your own innate skill.

People nowadays have the idea that a skinny-tire road bike can only ride on smooth pavement. That's where they are best, for sure ... but you can ride them on all kinds of surfaces.