I apologize to the cyclist who taught me a lesson

My last encounter with bicycles included a Chinese-speaking Uber driver, a fresh green light, and a “clean” New York City sidewalk…

And I wasn’t the one riding the bike.

See, despite being only an hour train ride from Manhattan, I’ve only visited the city a handful of times.

So, I have little first-hand experience with all the New York stereotypes I’ve seen on social media and YouTube.

One of the biggest stereotypes I've noticed is the tension between pedestrians and cyclists. I’ve watched countless videos of pedestrians walking across or in bike lanes, oblivious to the speeding cyclists furiously charging at them.

These videos have always painted the image in my mind that city cyclists are entitled...

Then, I became one of those oblivious pedestrians, and everything changed.

Last winter, I went into Manhattan for lunch and took an Uber from Penn Station to the restaurant. Along the way, I witnessed angry cyclists weaving around bike lane walkers and greedy cyclists riding in the middle of the road as if bike lanes weren’t a thing.

That 10-minute ride confirmed my preconceived notion that NYC cyclists are entitled.

After lunch, I wanted to walk the city streets half an hour back towards the train, but the MTA schedule forced me to Uber again.

I tried making small talk with my foreigner driver but knew I’d be traveling a silent ride. The driver’s propped-up phone had no English on it. All I saw were Chinese characters.

He said something to me, and I understood nothing. I felt terrible making him repeat every sentence, so I decided to be that awkward passenger, saying no more than, “How’s your day going? Good. Mine’s going good too.”

Still in the driving lane, we stopped at a red light outside Penn Station. In typical NYC fashion, the driver told me to get out, so he wouldn’t waste time pulling over.

But then the light turned green.

He still wanted me to get out, so I said a quick goodbye and reached for the door handle.

Suddenly, he started blabbering in broken English, and despite the concerned look growing on his face, my ignorant mind assumed he was trying to say bye to me.

So, I smiled through my face mask and told him to have a nice day.

As I opened the door, it slammed right into the side of a cyclist trying to squeeze between the car and the sidewalk.

I knocked him off balance, but he caught himself before his body could kiss the “clean” NYC sidewalk.

Once this happened, guilt and embarrassment flooded me.

The light was green, so cars started honking. My now frazzled Uber driver kept muttering, “Oh no, oh no, oh no.” And I had an enraged, entitled cyclist on the verge of slamming degrading insults at me for being like those oblivious pedestrians.

But the cyclist didn’t do that. He regained balance on his bike and rode off (unhurt) without saying a word or even throwing a despicable glare my way.

I assumed all NYC cyclists were inconsiderate. I categorized them in the same group because of silly videos I’d seen on YouTube. I stereotyped them.

The cyclist I hit could have confronted me verbally or physically, and that’s what I expected. But he proved to me that there’s no reason to blame all of them for a few of their discourteous actions.

I learned it’s easy to perceive a group’s reputation based on the actions of a tiny subset. But that subset may not always represent the group’s true identity.