MONTAGUE 2013 BICYCLE PROGRAM

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acket, the rear triangle could pivot around the seat tube and nest neatly inside the front triangle. This design came to be known as the BiFrame, and Harry received his first patent for the technology in the folding mechanism in the early 1980s. Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, Harry distributed a small number of his BiFrame folding bicycles. These first bikes were custom bikes – made to order by local frame builders. In 1987 David Montague, Harry's son, was a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), finishing up a degree in aerospace engineering. As luck would have it, he was also taking a course titled “New Ventures” at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. The final project for the course required him to write a business plan for a new company. David immediately thought of his father’s BiFrame design, and wrote a business plan detailing how to develop production and expand the market for full-size bikes that fold. While never intended as anything more than a class project, David’s business plan had so much promise that his professor offered to invest in the company. The course finished up in June of 1987, and one month later, David opened a small office down the street from MIT. Realizing that local frame builders would not be able to produce a sufficient quantity of frames at a reasonable cost, David started to look overseas for a manufacturer, and settled on Taiwan – where many of the bikes are still made today. David also looked for, and found, a U.S. distributor in Schwinn Bicycles. Beginning in 1988, Montague’s folding bicycles were sold through Schwinn, until Schwinn filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1992. Since then, Montague Corporation has been the sole distributor in the U.S. market. Montague also began working with the automobile industry in the early 1990's, designing bicycle models for various companies including BMW, General Motors, Mitsubishi Motors, Subaru, Toyota, Honda and Peugeot. Anticipating the surge in “Park and Pedal TM ” and other multi-modal bike commuting methods that would become popular over the next two decades, Montague’s bikes that fold were sold with select vehicle models. But partnering with the auto industry allowed Montague to do more than start changing the face of the commute. In 1996, Montague folding bikes were thrust into the international spotlight when the BMW Montague folding mountain bike was chosen as the first ever official Olympic mountain bike for the Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta. Two thousand of these bikes (painted red, white, and blue) were featured in the Games’
closing ceremonies. Olympic athletes and staff rode in formation on Montague bikes to make the image of the Olympic rings. A Military Redesign For the first ten years of mass production, Montague foldable bikes deviated very little from Harry’s original BiFrame design. But in 1997, Montague Corporation was awarded a grant through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), to develop a folding electric bicycle that could be used by the U.S. Marines and other military personnel. In order to better accommodate the needs of the military, Montague re-evaluated its frame design and further simplified the folding mechanism. This process resulted in a bike that combined the top tube with the down tube. While a departure from the BiFrame design, which closely mimicked the double-diamond frame, this new design allowed the bike to fold with just a single quick release. Instead of the rear triangle pivoting around the seat tube, just the top tube pivots. It is faster and easier to fold than the original BiFrame models, but does not compromise rigidity or strength. Montague also made other design changes that increased the bike’s load- bearing capacity. This technology is still used by Montague Corporation for all of its bikes today. Through the improvements in the frame made possible because of the DARPA grant, Montague’s Paratrooper model could be deployed with actual paratroopers. The bike folded and unfolded so easily, and was small enough to fit through an aircraft door, that soldiers parachuting from an airplane could jump while holding onto the bicycle. After they landed, they simply unfolded the bicycle, and were all set to go, with a range many times that of walking. Montague's bikes have been used extensively in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The X-Series, the Military Mountain Bike, and SwissBikes Building on the success of the DARPA project, in the late 1990s, Montague released a new line of bikes, called the X-Series, with its new monotube frame design. These bikes were popular with the public and together with the publicity generated from the DARPA project, there was an overwhelming demand for the original military bike, so Montague introduced a Paratrooper model for civilian use. Fifteen years later, the Paratrooper model is still one of the most popular models, both with troops deployed overseas as well as the civilian commuter and mountain biker.
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