They're not fun.
Allow the inflammation from the initial injury to subside (should have ay least started to after two weeks) before getting back on the bike, but generally it's one of the less damaging things you can do (unless you fall off bridges again!). You'll need to to be more conscious of using your gears & treading lightly on the pedals rather than mashing up hills, as mashing will cause more irritation and potential damage.
The severity of the tear will play a big part in how it behaves, whether surgery is required or not, and the recovery. Minor tears are really just a slight annoyance after the pain and inflamation of the initial injury subsides, but more severe tears can leave loose bits floating around, which can cause the knee to lock when you're trying to move it, and can also destabilise the joint, which in its turn opens up the risk of ligament damage if you're not careful loading it up. Physio will give a range of exercises to work the muscles around the knee to help stabilise it & reduce the possibility of secondary injuries.
I had a meniscus tear in conjunction with a few other misalignment issues. After the initial injury it was a bit shit for a few weeks, but improved to an acceptable level that it didn't bugger me around too much, and stabilised for a while, but after a couple of years it began to get worse, mostly as a result of the other misalignment issues exacerbating the instability. Went in for surgery near enough to three years after the first injury, to not only clean up the cartilage but fix the other shit too; on crutches for about a week, totally off the bike for a month until I got enough flexibility back to be able to pedal full rotations, then just ease into gentle road riding. Back to almost normal took about 3 months, I just couldn't fully bend my leg back to my bum, which was a bit of an annoyance out sailing. That last bit took the best part of five or six years to get back to full flexibility, but I'd got so used to it by then that it didn't bother me. 13 years down the track, that knee is now my better one....
If yours is a fairly simple tear with no other complications, the recovery should be a fair bit shorter. If it does come to surgery, it's possible you won't even need to be on crutches, at worst only a day or two, then a fairly close to full recovery over a few weeks.
The problem with cartilage is that once you reach adulthood & stop growing, there is bugger-all blood supply to it, so healing any injury to it takes a hell of a lot longer than any other tissue.