I lived on the far east side of Bangalore called Whitefield. It was a spectacular juxtaposition of the past and present, with glittering tech parks filled with computer engineers on one side of the street and men tilling the fields with oxen on the other. On weekends, I would bike east into the countryside and explore the villages and farms. I often found myself back at the bike shop, fixing a flat tire or tuning the cantilever brakes, which never worked well.

I made friends with the bike shop owner Abdullah and his family. They would always offer me hot chai while they worked on my bike.

I am a decent bike mechanic, and what surprised me about these bikes is how straightforward they are to fix. All you need is a few wrenches, a standard screwdriver, and a hammer, and you can take care of just about any problem. Abdullah often used his hammer, a big iron bar, and an anvil to beat bent parts into shape.

There was a wide range of fabulous accessories I added to my bike. My favorite is the glowing bull hood ornament with blue and red lights. I’d see these bulls mounted on tractors, and it looked great on my bike, especially at night when it lit up.

I found a guy who made custom stickers and he hooked me up with my company’s logo, a green frog, to go on the front mudflap. On the back mudflap, he printed my name in English, Hindi, and Kannada, the local language in Karnataka.

At the end of my stay, Abdullah helped take the bike apart and pack it in a large cardboard box. I got it back to California on the plane and spent a couple of weeks puzzling how to get it back together. It was great fun to ride around San Francisco and definitely one of a kind!

Here’s the full story of Atlas bikes, set to a rockin’ funk and disco soundtrack: