The other day, I was cycling back from Westwood to Venice, as I have done for almost a decade. At Wilshire and Gayley, the loudest, ugliest intersection of the trip, I noticed a man wearing an apron sitting on either side of a 10-speed. As cars sped past and an 18-wheeler honked its horn, I nudged forward and asked the man if he was in medical school. No, he said, with a decidedly German accent, that he resided here.

When I caught up with him again in Sepulveda, I told him his rear wheel needed new spokes. Did he say he knew, he only bought the bike for $100 and it definitely didn’t have the best ride?

In years of making this journey, this was the first time I had bonded so quickly with a stranger. “You must love riding the beach bike path,” said Conrad (we had changed names by then) and waved before he turned right as I continued straight in Barrington.

I felt like I was hit in the stomach.

I pedaled slowly for the next few blocks; I didn’t pay attention to the car opening, broken glass or potholes. I wasn’t exaggerating the pride I felt in not driving and exercising. I felt regret and shame.

Despite my carefully chosen course of action in Los Angeles (I made a transition from motorcyclist to cyclist that felt very special), in almost 10 years of good intentions and cycling boasting and evangelism, I had never once had the good sense to venture west. So I was able to complete the last few kilometers of my journey on the coastal bike path, which now seemed like the best route.

When my family moved to Los Angeles in 2013, we bought a Honda and decided where we would live, how we would work, and where our child would go to school. After settling in Venice Beach, we found a place at an elementary school a few kilometers away in Westwood. “How bad can the commute be?” We thought naively. We soon discovered that during heavy traffic the journey could take up to an hour. Traffic has become a part of our daily lives. Our child lost his first tooth at 405; My bumper once seemed to be kissing a Mercedes; A woman beat me so bad I saw stars. I felt unhappy and trapped.

Then came the email that changed everything. The note said my employer would give me a new bike, but only if I gave up my parking pass. Soon our child was heading to Venice elementary school and our car was collecting dust on the block.

I rode my bike everywhere with excitement like a convert. I deleted Waze who thought six lanes of traffic could be crossed without lights at the Olympics. I have a great bike helmet, a good lock, and increasingly strong opinions about not driving.

I found the quickest and safest route home from my job in Westwood. I felt muscles tighten and instincts sharpen as I developed a cyclist’s sense of traffic flow. I memorized traffic lights and places where car doors could hit. I learned which areas often had broken glass and nasty potholes. When a friend of mine came, we did the route together. I couldn’t have imagined the routine would get any better.

Then Conrad.

Suddenly the beach route comment did me a huge favor and made me feel like an uncaring brute.

We took the kid to high school, my employer valued me and I knew a good plumber. I voted regularly and had a pretty good smoothie recipe. But although I bike on the beach at other times, I never considered riding a few extra blocks to avoid traffic jams in the last two miles and enjoy a beautiful bike ride in paradise every workday.

That’s what I did that afternoon. I continued straight on Colorado and Main and there it was: the Pacific Ocean awash in pinks and oranges. I pedaled alongside my three siblings, holding hands and singing, and city workers cleaning public restrooms. I saw people doing gymnastics on rings and ropes and volleyball courts buzzing with competition. A lifeguard tower is being closed for the day. A woman in leather pants walking a dog painted bright pink. A gray-haired man sings into a microphone, his feet sandy and spread wide.

I always arrived home a few minutes after I arrived. And despite my disappointment at the years I missed, I was very happy that I could now go down this path.

In Los Angeles, and really everywhere, it’s easy to get into a groove, stop looking around and think we’re doing a good enough job. All it took was a quick conversation with a German named Conrad to make a small change that resulted in a big upgrade. Something so small – right in front of me from the beginning – felt so big. I’ll look into anything else I missed.

Nathan Deuel teaches at UCLA and is the author of “Friday Was the Bomb: Five Years in the Middle East.”