Nearly every day I get asked this one. Sometimes it's "are't you scared?" Other times it's "aren't you lonely?" My answers are (1) of course, but not for the reasons you'd expect, and (2) never.
I'm not frightened of being robbed. I ostentatiously lash my kypto lock and super think cable extension to the tent on the back panniers, but (shush) rarely if every use them to lock the bike. I brought the krypto because I wanted to ride in London and basically a bike gets stolen there in, say 1 second. All the bikes left at the rail stations are total beaters and anyone who rides in London basically shells out for a folding Brompton and folds it up and carries it where ever they go.
When I go into a boulangerie every morning to buy 2 croissants, then go across the street to the Bar Tabac to pick up a café créme and give the local layabouts inside something to talk about, I never lock the bike. I just prop Sir Gulliver against a wall or a flower planter and go inside. Ditto at lunchtime, my main concern is to park Sir G in the shade so that my bike bags don't roast in the Norman sun.
Several guy cyclists I've talked with just can't resist lifting Sir G and they are amazed at the weight. So, that's partly the answer: the bike is way too loaded for anyone to dash off with it. Besides, I am the only cyclist so far I've seen with bright yellow matching front and back panniers. Believe me, all the little towns I've gone through must have a grapevine running hot n heavy: "Hey, Didier, tu crois, l'anglaise elle s'arrive!" and "Sophie, did you see what that americaine is carrying. I just peered at her through my pretty lace window curtains so she doesn't see me looking. She's totally mad!"
My major fears are having to change another flat, and again apparently forgetting how to do it, and skinning more of my knuckles than last time. Other fears are: "OMG! It's 12:15pm and if I don't find a restaurant serving lunch, or at least one that isn't serving only moules frites, I don't have enough time to make it to the next town, and I'll bonk because maybe that next town won't have an epicerie either! Final fear is: "where the heck is the municipal campground and now that it's July will it be totally full of camping-cars and will I have to pitch my little tent on a field of gravillons?"
As for being lonely, jamais! I seem to present such an unusual spectacle, and perhaps my smile and "bonjour!" is so disarmingly strange, that people really reach out to me. Sometimes it's some farmer cutting a hedge who gives me a big country smile, makes the pedaling motion with his arms and shouts "roulez!" Or grande-mére working in her potager or cooling her heels sitting in a chair in the open doorway of her stone house on a hot hot afternoon, who'll happily chat. Plus, now that I'm in the "anglais" belt of Normandy, I'm meeting lots of folks from the UK, and they're keen to figure out why someone would ride around France like I'm doing.
It's getting a little easier to find places with Internet, as in some of the Office Tourisme's or in the campground offices, so it's possible.
Out on the road all day, it's really pleasant to have only cows or chickens or doves for company.
No worries.
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