This is the Montague Paratrooper, it’s a fully-featured folding mountain bike that was developed for special forces operatives thanks to a DARPA grant seeking a tough, air-deployable bike for reconnaissance behind enemy lines.
Bicycles might not seem like a natural choice for special forces use but they do actually make a lot of sense, they allow troops to cover significant distances in almost total silence, they’re lightweight, and they inexpensive enough to be discarded after the mission.
The bike folds down to this size, allowing it to be stowed in the trunk quickly and easily between rides – no more need for expensive and cumbersome bike racks on your car.
The Montague Paratrooper: A History Speedrun
Montague Bikes started out all the way back in the 1980s, when Harry Montague designed a folding mountain bike that that fit his 6′ 2″ frame. His son David Montague was fascinated with the concept, and formed the Montague Corporation while still in graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Montague was soon producing a line of full-size, high-performance bicycles that folded, sacrificing nothing in performance or strength, while still being able to fit in a regular trunk when folded down.
In the 1990s, Montague began producing some of the first production e-bikes in the world, even supplying them with branding to the likes of BMW and Mercedes-Benz. The company rose to worldwide prominence when their folding bike design was chosen as the Official Mountain Bike of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta.
In 1997 the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) issued a grant to Montague to develop a new folding frame design, increasing the bike’s weight carrying capacity and ensuring it would fold faster, and be tough enough for parachuting from military aircraft with paratroopers.
Civilian demand was strong for this new military design, and so Montague created a version for consumers named the the X-Series, based on the military frame design. Today, this is by far the best-known of the Montague designs, and sales remain strong in the USA, Europe, and further afield.
The Montague Paratrooper
The Montague Paratrooper has a 6061 series aluminum frame with the DirectConnect System allowing it to fold and unfold quickly and securely. It has front suspension courtesy of SR Suntour XCT forks with 80mm of travel.
The bike comes in two frame sizes, allowing you to match your height, and both sizes get the same tough design meant for jumping out of military aircraft. The bike has 24 speeds thanks to a Shimano gear system, it has a SR Suntour XCC 42/32/22 crank set, and front and rear mechanical disc brakes.
Once unfolded, the bike is rigid and cheerfully capable of both on and off road riding.
Pricing isn’t as bad as you might imagine, in the world of high-end bicycles prices typically extend well into the high four or even five figures, the Montague Paratrooper sells for $1,195 USD and it comes with a lifetime warranty on the frame, with a one year warranty on everything else.
If you’d like to read more or visit the official online store you’ll find it here.
Images courtesy of Montague
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.