Hi bike ladies of MN, I'm an experienced and v careful rider who makes few signalling mistakes, but today I made an error. I was on a two-lane bikes only separated path, and cut across the other lane of the bike path to stop and get off my bike. I looked behind me and thought there was nobody coming either way, and failed to signal right. Turns out there was another bike coming up behind really fast, and he had to swerve briefly to get out of the way. (no cars involved, this was all in the separated bike lane). I was mortified, apologised twice to the other rider, vigorously, and he said equally vigorously and with good humour that it was OK, we made eye contact and smiled and it was an appropriate exchange after my error, which I very much acknowledged and have learned from.
Seconds later, another dude comes by, middle aged and in full mamil getup, and gave me what felt like a scolding, saying 'you don't know how close that was!' I said as he passed, 'I know! I feel really bad!' but I wanted to add: stop telling off female cyclists!' but it was too late. AIBU to think that he shouldn't have told me off? I was there riding in a very un-mamil way, in a long skirt, pointy pumps and (unusally for me) no hemet with long hair. There's always plausible denial for microaggressions (it's not because you were a woman! It's because you made a mistake! etc) but am I right in feeling that this is part of a pattern where young female cyclists get told how to be riders by older men? In any case, I'll never bl&&dy not signal again. Thanks for reading my rant.