Video: NYPD take down CitiBike rider as Obama motorcade rolls through Manhattan

Officers from the New York Police Department on Wednesday intercepted a man riding one of the city's CitiBike hire bicycles as he unwittingly rode towards an intersection on Park Avenue just seconds before Barack Obama's presidential motorcade rolled through. To add insult to injury, the episode made the unfortunate rider miss a date.

The incident was caught on video posted to Instagram, with some questioning whether one of the officers was using excessive force on the cyclist, who was very much in the wrong place at the wrong time.

However, one commenter to the video said that when they asked police whether such a strong-arm approach was really necessary, they were told "it's the President."

 

This #Citibike rider tries to penetrate a #NYPD barrier seconds before the #Obama #motorcade rolls across Park Avenue... what happens next will not surprise you #clickbait

A video posted by Matt (@mattpeco) on Jun 8, 2016 at 3:47pm PDT

The cyclist, Daniel Provencio, appears to have had his mind on other things as he obliviously breached the road block - he told TMZ he was listening to the song Call Me Maybe as he pedalled to a date with someone he had met on a dating site the previous evening.

And call his planned date with what must be the Mother of All Excuses for lateness is exactly what he did when police let him go after several hours of questioning, but it was to no avail.

"Manhattan men are huge on punctuality," he reflected.