June Group Buy for Montague Paratrooper Folding Bikes

JC Refuge · Jun 2, 2006

Been working on this for a while and now I've got the thumbs up from Montague USA.

I just listed the ultimate prepper bike in my store--the Montague Paratrooper--developed in conjunction with DARPA for the military, and only recently made available in the civilian marketplace.

See my listing: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:US:11&item=7246333712

MSRP is $695. MAP is $645. OUR special Survivalmonkey prices are much lower for a very limited time. ... Our limited-time, group-buy discounted prices are not advertisable (so as not to violate the MAP agreement--do NOT post our special prices here in this thread please). If you are interested, email me and I'll give you the price: jcrefuge@safecastle.net.

The bike comes in either an 18 inch or 20 inch frame. The one you want is based on your height--see the bottom of the listing. I could go on and on about this bike, but I suggest if you are interested, you have a look at the listing and do more research. This bike was designed and built to be dropped out of airplanes on a man's back, to be unfolded and to be ridden away in 30 seconds. Yep--tough and lite!

I'm thrilled to have it in my store and to be able to offer you a very nice discount.

The group buy will run through June. Orders should deliver in July.

melbo · Jun 4, 2006

Oh man JC...
I wanted one of these last year.

this from savvysurvivor,

The bike is the brainchild of Harry Montague who made his first folding mountain bike in 1986 and a team of Pentagon appointed developers who wanted to develop a rugged yet portable means of enhancing soldier mobility. Military use of bicycles is not new, but had fallen out of favor with the US military after WW1 and eclipsed by the general push toward motorized vehicles, especially for use in crossing the relatively wide expanses of desert at most major US training bases and recent theaters of combat operations. That is not to say Pentagon planners have ignored the utility of virtually silent, air portable, and fuel miserly transportation for highly mobile troops.

The general consensus is that a man on a bike can cover twice the mileage in half the time as a man on foot, given some considerations to terrain and payload. A person on foot can usually balance and carry much large loads than a person on a bike, but over a much shorter distance. Likewise, few, if any troops are in good enough physical condition to match the speed and distance a bike mobile person can cover. Long term military people are also quick to point out that years, or even months of road marches can play hell on the legs and spine, while bike riding has much much less potential for longer term "wear and tear" injuries, albeit some higher risk of short term injuries from crashes. In the big mix, smart thinkers are still in favor of the bike. The main reason being that long term injury from forced marches and foot patrols is inevitable, while injury from bike riding is often a matter of risk only, and at that determined by care and skill at riding.

Enter the final design of the Pentagon working group, also known as the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). This is a full duty and highly durable quality mountain bike built to take abuse and rough terrain. The main limitation on the use of bikes by the US military has been that they are not particularly portable unless they are being ridden. Most bikes take up a lot of cargo space which is often precious when a large force must project over vast distances, and admittedly, the bikes serve only a limited role in the big picture. Troops like the Swiss, who usually operate close to home, have used bikes extensively, yet never felt the need for folding bikes. Thus, the lack of easy portability had to be a major factor in developing a bike for US military use. Traditional folding frame designs have been too weak for the rigors of military use, but the Montaque frame design has compensated for those shortcomings and can easily deploy or fold inside of 30 seconds with no loss of structural integrity when it is deployed. A big part of this is that the chainset never changes geometry when the bike is folded, and the system uses a common removable front wheel assembly that incorporates the front disk brake that will not lose adjustment when it is attached or removed. This is a common problem with most other removable wheel designs because the front brakes get out of whack when you reattach the tire. By integrating a front disc brake into the bike, they avoid this problem, yet don't have to give up effective front shocks.

The average speed of a foot infantryman over a dirt road is going to be around 3 to 5 miles per hour, assuming an "administrative" travel pace and no contact with the enemy. Compared to a bike at around 8 to 15 MPH (depending on hills), the difference in mobility is obvious. Note, that mobility is gained with only an additional 35 to 40 pounds of cargo (the bike, spares and maybe a carry case) going into the zone. That formula has obvious applications to the survivalist or traveler who wants independent mobility, yet retain the option of using regular airports, taxis and mass transit. IE, the folding bike can easily be taken into the passenger compartment of most aircraft, boats and land vehicles. It can also easily be carried in a motorcycle sidecar since the folded size is roughly 3'X3'X1'. That size easily fits in most car trunks, behind the seat of most king cab pickups and in the luggage compartments of most small aircraft. Note the bike does not collapse and get smaller for storage, but folds so that it can go into a different shape of storage compartment. It will still take the same cubic volume of cargo space whether or not it is folded. Part of the size limitation is that the designers did not compromise on the overall size of the bike. It uses full size 28" tires and regular full size components throughout. Optional folding pedals help make the package a little more compact when folded, and the front wheel is removable like on most middle and higher end mountain bikes.

The security aspect of a folding and portable bike for the apartment or barracks dweller is obvious. Instead of leaving your bike out in the bike rack or hallway, it can tuck reasonably neatly under the bed or behind the couch. This also means the bike can be stored inside out of the weather, even when in the field or in the wilderness. Only the most dedicated and anal retentive bike rider would take a conventional bike into the tent overnight, but the paratrooper bike can easily fit in a small tent with room to spare for other gear and the sleeping mat.

The primary use of this kind of bike is going to be for relatively short patrols and errands away from your main vehicle. For the paratrooper, the original concept was for the troopers to quickly converge on a drop zone rally point after being dropped into what may be multiple drop zones or spread out landing areas. For example, an Air assault unit dropping into a built up area that has no single LZ that can accommodate the entire force at once, and the multiple smaller LZs are spread apart in a way that would take an hour or two to get the troops rallied up for the mission. Drop troops and bikes at multiple LZs uphill of the main supply rally point, and you can have your force quickly cover the ground to the rally point by bike, and relatively quietly.

For the special forces team, gaining distance from the drop zone to a safe rallying point in a hurry may be important, and the bikes increase the speed and distance that can be accomplished, especially if there are any roads around. For regular troops on deployment, the portable bike can make a lot of onerous camp and base errands pretty easy. Light patrols between checkpoints, mail delivery, PX runs to the other side of the FOB, or even buying a little more sleep time because you can get out to change of duty at the guard post quicker. The bike can then be stored in a relatively small area when you fold the frame and take the quick detach front wheel off. Most troops have the necessary nominal mechanical ability to take care of these bikes without the need for additional specialized maintenance facilities.

The survivor can have many other similar uses for the bike, especially in those scenarios where fuel might come into shortages and it is impractical to keep horses around. "Bugged in" at the retreat, you can cover a lot of ground on routine patrols and checks around the area, simple visits to the neighbors, and light shopping errands. Combine a bike with NVGs and you can likely cover a fair amount of ground in relative stealth at night without needing to go through as many travel chokepoints that could pose a danger. When "bugging out", a recon element on a bike can survey routes of travel with little or no risk to supplies in the bugout vehicle, yet the bike itself is easily transported in your BOV when you get back to it. This is a serious consideration for those whose BOVs are vans and campers that can easily get stuck in some places along alternate bugout routes. In the urban environment, you can cover a fair amount of ground while not being limited to the flow of traffic for the most part. This can be an important factor for survivors who live or work in city centers and keep their main BOV and or bugout supplies outside the city center.

The paratrooper is on the "upper middle" end of the scale of price and quality for mountain bikes and the difference between it and the new breed of halfway decent bikes from the large retailers is immediately evident when you climb on. The bike is lighter, more responsive and rigid than lower grade designs. Better wheel bearings, lighter weight rolling components and less overall friction on the chain mean that the average rider can climb hills better in a higher gear than one would be able to do on a heavier bike with higher friction rolling components. In practical terms comparing my Paratrooper to the generic but pretty decent Wally world bike I have, I can power up hills on the Paratrooper that I have to walk the bike up when I am going out with the heavy bike. Granted, the heavy bike has some accessories on it that add weight and there is an appropriate role for a $120 bike in the stable for those occasions when a bike is going to be left unattended in the bed of a pickup truck our outside a convenience store for a few minutes. One should note that in a military deployment or survival situation, it is smart to add slime runflat material to the tires or use tubeless runflat tires even though that will add weight to the bike. We will soon have the Paratrooper bikes available with solid tires, but the experts at the company tell me they are not popular because the added weight takes away some of the performance of the bike.
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June Group Buy for Montague Paratrooper Folding Bikes

JC Refuge Emergency Essentials Store Vendor

melbo Hunter Gatherer Administrator Founding Member

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June Group Buy for Montague Paratrooper Folding Bikes

JC Refuge Emergency Essentials Store Vendor

melbo Hunter Gatherer Administrator Founding Member

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