"Fear is the little death." That's my motto. I only ride road. I'm never afraid. I've never gone down from a judgement error. I don't limit my bike's speed other than not being careless about cornering. I'm a very fast descender. I run 400+ lumen flashers on both ends of all my bikes. I wear very visible clothing, no earth tones. I use a helmet mirror. I've had one "vehicle encounter" but that's the reason for my current practice with the lights and clothing. I wasn't really injured, just some lower leg bleeding, no bike damage. I kept riding, finished my planned route. I am careful about where and when I ride. I mostly ride on relatively low traffic rural roads. These days, most of my riding is on our tandem, so we have 4 eyes to keep track of what's going on and we are a more impressive and visible object.

I used to rock and mountain climb. Quit that many years ago. I was occasionally scared, and probably for good reason. If you're scared, you're not in the high function state you need to be in. I still ski piste and Nordic. I'm never afraid skiing, partly because I'm pretty good, but also because even though my practice has been "if you're not falling, you're not learning", I've never been injured. I'm good at falling, having had lots of practice.

I'm also the luckiest SOB on this planet. That helps. But as it is said, we make our own luck.

Even though I had a recent CABG, I've been in very good health, which I feel has been due to a lifetime of hard physical activity.