On this bright summer evening in Central Park, Maria DiMeglio really only sees the moving silhouettes of what is around her. She has a genetic eye disease that causes her to lose her vision over time.

“I had to go to special schools and resource programs, and had to learn braille,.” DiMeglio said. “I’ve had to use large print. So I was always different.”

The Pelham Parkway resident never thought she’d ever ride a bike — until she heard about InTandem. The nonprofit pairs blind cyclists with sighted ones so everyone can enjoy the benefits of bike-riding.

What You Need To Know

Maria DiMeglio doesn’t let her vision impairments stop her from cycling around Central Park

DiMeglio volunteers with InTandem, a program that gets low-vision and blind New Yorkers on bikes

She is on the organization’s board and introduces blind cyclists and sighted ones to team bicycle riding

“It opened the world to me for sports,” she said. “It opened the world for me to look inside myself and find more things that I could do.”

DiMeglio hopped on her first bike a little more than a decade ago when she was 44-years-old.

“Of course, I was afraid of falling. And he assured me. He said, ‘Don’t worry, you’re fine. We won’t fall.’ And we didn’t,” she said.

She kept at it and gradually took on more responsibility with InTandem. DiMeglio now sits on the board of directors, trains new blind riders and mentors sighted ones.

“Communication: part of being on that bike, it’s all about communication, teamwork,” she said.

“I lost my sight about six years ago, six and a half years ago,” Zak Bentley, participant of InTandem, said. “And I would say most things in life. I found it another way, [a] different way of doing. And until I found InTandem, I hadn’t found another way of doing cycling.”

“She lets everyone know what’s going on, and everyone feels good to be around her,” he added.

DiMeglio is especially proud to work with young cyclists. It’s an opportunity to encourage others in the blind community to keep pedaling, even when it feels like an uphill climb.

“We can do everything like everyone else,” she said. “We just need to do it differently.”

For helping visually impaired New Yorkers feel the joys of cycling, Maria DiMeglio is our New Yorker of the Week.