That's generally a good idea, but crashes are unpredictable things by their very nature. Coming from an aggressive mtb background I've had my fair share of crashes over the years and somehow come out largely unscathed. No broken bones amazingly, but I have suffered a few cases of road rash and I distinctly remember how painful it is if your hands do get involved. It's just one of those things. As you haven't experienced it you obviously don't worry about it and hopefully you never will.

This reminds me of another incident a couple of years ago. I try to encourage my daughters to wear gloves when we go mountain biking and our youngest often refused. Then she came off her bike after hitting a rut in the trail and ended up with.... yep you've guessed it, grazed up palms. It wasn't all that bad, but it did hurt and she did cry. Then she started wearing the gloves. That's kind of how it works with this sort of thing. It's like the helmet debate. I rode for years without bike or ski helmets and then one day I finally whacked my head hard enough to get concussion and then bought a helmet.

I think gloves really are one of those YMMV things.
Basically, I don't MTB, but I'd probably feel differently about this if I did.

Exactly. I can't remember the last time I actually fell off my road bike. It was at least 30 years ago. All my crashes in the last few decades have been on my MTB and since I've backed off from more aggressive DH in the last decade I haven't fallen off that either. But you never know!

Serious question: If you don't wear gloves, what about wiping your nose?

Sleeve.

and do these spills usually occur just after you reached with your hand to wipe the moving tire? ;) I dont think I am going to try it :)

It's an old trick I learned from my tubular days in the 70s. Not that uncommon or especially dangerous.

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/brandt/wiping.html
https://www.velonews.com/gear/techni...-wiping-tires/
https://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycl...-tire-fly.html

I get what you are saying, but how exactly do you train for this? Do you actually practice crashing?

Training may be the wrong word, it's more a matter of rethinking it. One thing about riding in New England, I hit enough potholes that this can become second nature to me. Giving up on the handlebars is the surest way to go over in that situation so I've augmented my ability to recover and prevent the crash by never giving it up.