The documentation available on the website is less than thorough. They don't really go into details about what components are used, and some of the details about how specifics work are not outlined in detail. Most of the reviews I've found for Montague bikes seem to be just regurgitations of specs and praise for the wonders of a full-size folding bike with minimal, if any, critique. I wanted to give an honest assessment for those of you considering the tough decisions between either folding-or-not, or full-size-vs-small-wheels.

To start with some background... I am north of 200lbs (for the time being, knock on wood). I typically average about 15mph whether I'm riding an 80 mile group tour of the Hudson Valley, or a 10 mile loop around the house to get the blood flowing. I have a few bikes to choose from. I have a Nashbar X Aluminum cyclocross frame built up as a touring/endurance bike around a Rohloff hub, a Ti Sport built up as a lightweight 19lb racer.

I also am a recent owner of a Dahon Vitesse i7. This is a 20" folder with the Simano Nexus 7-speed IGH. This is relevant as I have been riding this bike almost daily since October of last year and have gotten a good feel for what my commute is like on that bike. Additionally, I bought both the Dahon and the Montague online from the same retailer. I expect both of them came in the box untouched by human hands since they were assembled by their respective factories in China.

I know most folks who ride folders do so because it may be part of a bigger mindset of small, minimal, utilitarian transportation which is unobtrusive when not rolling. I do not fall into this category. The only reason I have a folder is because that is the only way I am able to carry a bicycle on the MetroNorth commuter train into Manhattan. I do thi because I enjoy riding a bike to work. This may be part of the reason I came to dislike my Dahon. While the Dahon is a quality bike and came out of the box almost perfectly set up, it is not for me. I commute about 15 to 18 miles per day with two Ortleib bags. I haven't weighed them packed, but my daily load includes a Macbook Pro and ancillaries, coffee, food for the day, a complete change of clothes, and the usual bike needs. It's not light.

After the IGH bearings worked themselves loose a few times (which an LBS was able to fix), I decided to sell before I ruined the hub.

I could have gone to a Dahon with traditional drivetrain, but I decided to forego any pretense of portability and just meet the minumal qualification of foldability in order to commute with the bike on MetroNorth.

The next decision was which Montague to purchase. Ideally, I had a lot of ideas in my head, most involving the Montague Boston converted to use the Rohloff. But that would take a fair investment in parts. I opted for the Navigator as it had the most full-featured frame. In the end, I knew that is basically what I was buying, but I needed the bike to be ride-able as I tweaked and modified.

Unpacking and First Impressions

Pulling it out of the box, there's quite a bit to set up. It's a lot more like a traditional bike setup than the Dahon. This isn't a problem, but it's worth noting for those with less experience setting up bikes.

My initial thoughts are that the component levels are surprisingly low-level for a $1000 bike. Perhaps I'm getting old, but my first real bike was less than $1000 and came with Shimano 105s. It was a Specialized Epic from about 1995. The drivetrain literally cannot be any cheaper and still be called Shimano. They use Acera/Altus when they bother using anything name brand. Everything else generally doesn't have a brand or is from another group that you can assume is the bottom of the line.

Looking around at similarly priced mass-market bikes, I guess I can assume that these days you have to pay upwards of $1500 before you get anything around 105-level groups and decent wheels. Perhaps this bike isn't too far off-base and I just have unrealistic expectations?

A few of the other particularly disappointing small pieces are the pedals and the saddle. The pedals are small rubber coated pieces that seem pretty useless aside from the fact that they can say they gave you somewhere to put your feet. I will be switching to SPDs, but I can't even imagine using these in the mean time. Luckily, I have some old school cage pedals with clips that will get me by for a while.

I'm not sure what to say about the saddle. It's another component that I know I'll be changing out. In this case for a Brooks B17, but I would have expected the one that ships with it to at least get me by. Sadly it's extremely uncomfortable. Again, I have some that I can swap from other bikes while I get the orders sorted, but it's worth noting.

To be fair, the Dahon saddle and pedals came off before I even tried them. I'm just picky that way.

The rims are basically no-name ("Shining" brand), but at least they are double wall. The hubs are Formula, but I'm not sure which model - likely the cheapest they make. What's worse is that the wheels were shipped with literally the worst build quality I have ever seen. They are out of true and the spokes are clearly of drastically differing tensions. Opportunity? I'm going to buy a tension meter and if I can true them up, then I'll likely be able to build any replacement wheel from scratch!

Since this is my first bike with disc brakes, I'm going to reserve judgement for a hundred miles or so. I'm pretty sure I'll be upgrading to BB7 roads (when I move over to drop-bars). I will say that I'm not impressed after only riding around the block compared even to the cantilevers on my X frame.

The bottom line is that for the price, I would have appreciated at least slightly higher quality components. Will I be happy with it? Yes, but it's going to take some work. I knew this was going to be the case, so I don't want to sound surprised. I think the Dahon is a better-built bike at a better price, but personally, I prefer the feel of a full-size bike for my fully-loaded commute.

In case anyone's interested, I'll keep the thread up to date with mods I've made and further observations as I put more miles on it. First commute will be tomorrow morning!

I want one.

First day and my 9 mile commute (one way) was about 7 minute faster.

I was a little worried about the rack, but it held up nicely. When it's unloaded the rack has a bit of a rattle due to the fact that it's not bolted hard to the frame anywhere. It's clipped on to a hinge at the bottom and a latch at the top. However, when it's loaded the rattle quiets down. Overall, very happy with the first day.

Still, the highest priorities are a Brooks B17 and a conversion to drop bars.

Looks fantastic!!!

Updates... I finally got the rider swapped for a drop bar. I used an 80mm 7 degree stem and went with Sora shifters as all of the 3x9 Ultegras on ebay have been beat to hell. I'm not a huge fan of brifters, but they were surprisingly easy to install and tweak... and there's not too many other options besides barcons on this setup.

So far, this is the best thing I could have ever done and makes me not mind almost everything else about the bike that I was considering changing. Surprisingly, the Sora levers have better braking with the stock calipers than the ones that shipped with it. That was a pleasant surprise.

The paint's getting all scratched up. As a commuter that gets thrown into the back of a car 4 days a week, locked up in a crowded bike area and carried on a train, that's to be expected.

Sorry for the photos not being great... took them after a quick ride this afternoon.

Thanks for the update. I been riding a Paratrooper since 4/2014.

Great review. I was contemplating a Navigator but after seeing the specs for 2016 I was very disappointed. I new I would be replacing drivetrain and brakes. If I went with a lower model I would have to add wheels. I also contacted the company a few times with no response via email. I did purchase a used Paratrooper and quickly sold it. I did own 2 Dahon Boardwalks for a few years which worked for RV travel but eventually fell a part. I finally visited a shop in Pa that carried Xootr Swift and was pleasantly surprised. Fortunately I found an upgraded used one on CL for half the cost. I have it about a month and have put over 500 miles and it continues to delight. At $850 new it is not cheap and needs some component upgrade but all else is acceptable including the seat and the owner is very responsive. We will be travelling FT in an RV and I wanted a solid ride I could easily maintain. I needed another folder for my wife who is not an avid cyclist and recently purchased a Downtube Nova. It is a great bang for the buck and only needed minor adjustments out of the box. In those style folders I believe Downtube is as good as Dahon/Tern for a lot less and Yan the owner is very responsive and offers great customer service. If the bike was for me I would get a higher end model. As a recumbent enthusiast I understand the higher cost of specialty bikes but don't get why some cheap out on components.
Thanks again for your honest review and safe riding.

By the way... for those interested, here it is folded up with the drop bars. Takes up a bit more space, but worth it. Almost feels like I could get a front rack and/or non-folding fender in there.

s

With full sized wheels making a compact folding bike is really not possible, Though It is a Little shorter..

I suppose The 'folding bikes only during Rush Hours' It May Pass , but it's only a Guess

It's a folding bike, so they let it on. I get stopped every once in a while as I pass the conductors getting on the train, but just tell them it's folding and they let it go.

Like I said, I wasn't really going for compact... just enough to qualify to get it on the train.

s

I've got a few hundred miles on this guy and still enjoying it quite a bit, but in the name of progress, I finally took the time to make a couple of mods that I had in mind after the drop bar conversion.

One small issue is that the rack was starting to rattle more and more. As I said before, I carry about 20lb of clothes, food, and computer gear on my commute and after 400 miles, it was starting to wear on the plastic parts where the rack is loosely mounted to the axle.

I have an Old Man Mountain rack that I've had longer than any of my bikes now and love it. It's now mounted to the bike and saved about 170 grams. It's a solid mount rather than the pivot they mount their rack on in case you want to fold it down and use as a stand.

I also had a spare CX fork laying around with disc tabs on it from an upgrade on another bike. I just had to swap out the crown race and the fork came over without a problem. That aluminum fork was almost 1.2kilos! The new carbon CX fork is 748 and feels so much better.

That's a pound and a quarter...

Turns out that while I managed to true the wheels nicely, I had a fender bender with another biker one day and broke a spoke. Taking that opportunity to try my first wheel build. I have a set of Deore XT 8000 hubs on the way along with a pair of DT 460 rims. That should give me another couple hundred grams I imagine... and I can stop riding around with a borked front wheel.

these look great. i'll bet they can easily be adapted to 20" wheels.

I had a Montague at least 10 years ago and did not find the folding to be much benefit. In your case it is a huge benefit. You could probably buy a nice $1100 mountain bike online with much better components than the Montague and swap components for less money than buying the components by the each. I have bought a stripped a lot of bikes for parts and sold the remainders on ebay.

I recently purchased a Swift and I am amazed at the capability of this little bike. I am planning on internationally traveling with my Swift in a standard suitcase. I have been commuting on my swift--3+ miles each way for the last 3 weeks and taking it on couple hour rides biketrail rides.

[MENTION=314606]smallwheeler[/MENTION] - yes, they are extremely flexible. You can see here how it worked on my Dahon Vitesse so that I could carry full-size panniers. The bags cover them up a bit, but I used some longer bolts to fit them onto the rack mounts above the axle and they fit like normal over the brakes...

Assuming you don't have an internal gear hub, the rack would easily attach at the axles as they are supposed to.

-s

You are probably right... But I'm taking it slow for now and only replacing what drives me crazy first. The only thing I haven't had sitting around were the brifters and cables. Everything else was take-off from other projects, so not too much expenditure yet.

s

Okay, final update... I've gotten the bike tweaked out as much as I want to. Had some more hand-me-downs and picked up a couple of pieces off ebay. In general I was trying to reduce weight to a practical limit. A secondary goal was to optimize the utility of the bike and convert to some slightly more reliable components.

In this picture you can see the carbon fork which was transferred from my Ti cyclocross bike. I also build a wheelset for the first time. These are XT M8000 hubs with DT 460 rims.

Upgraded the rear derailleur to an Ultegra 9-speed standard cage since I removed the front derailleur and didn't need the extra takeup of the long cage. Switched to XT cranks, external bearing BB, and an HG chain. One note is that I have no idea how they got the original BB in there. No matter what I tried, I could not thread the new BB in straight. I had to chase the threads with a BB threading tool and then it went in perfectly.

First ride this morning just in time for the NYC snow. It's good to be back on the bike. I was hit by a car in October which kept me off the bike for a while... Hopefully will be back for the rest of the year with a few less accidents.

s

Thank you for the update.
Nice bike.

What cassette tooth range came standard and what do you have now?

There was an 11-28 on there of unknown origin. It now has an Ultegra 11-28 hand-me-down from one of my other bikes.

-s

I noticed you replace the octagon stem in the first picture was there a reason for it. I find difficulty getting the headset firm with the octagon and replced it with a normal stem after 2 weeks of using the navigator.

I didn't even try the Octagon. I can see it being useful only for riders who like an upright position but want to be able to collapse the stem when folding the bike up to make it smaller. To me it was just another moving part, added weight, and a point of failure.

yes - complete junk and very dangerous - the quick releases used on this bike are low grade aluminum as well. If you look at the employee bikes, they only use the frame and replace all of the junk

Hm, was considering the 2019 Navigator for a fall purchase. Had heard mixed opinions on the disc brakes but generally heard the bike was still a solid buy (if pricey because of their custom frame). Do you own one of the Navigators? What's wrong with the stock QRs that makes them worth replacing?

yes I own one that is a few years old. The Octagon failed in the first week, resulting in a light injury. One of the quick releases stripped as it is simply a threading in the low grade aluminum. The bearings for the headset were cheaper than a bike from Target or Walmart. I have seen many posts over the years of bikes that essentially used the frame only. I am not sure if there is an alternative for a full sized folding bike. If I were buying one today, I would buy a bike used and then strip it completely to use just the frame. It is a fairly inexpensive bike with a very expensive hinge.

Hm, first I had heard of those issues (especially the headset bearings) - I'm wondering if it's better on the more recent ones. What was the low-grade alu it was threading into - the cap on the non-lever side of the QR?

I had wondered if the frames were available through them - I swear at one point they were - but that doesn't seem to be the case now if it ever was.

"Inexpensive bike with expensive hinge" does seem to be what others have said in the past about Montague bikes - the frame itself seems to be well regarded across the board, but the components not so much. Originally considered a Paratrooper but the pavement bike frame grew on me. At 1k stock for the Navigator, though, I'd expect basic stuff like QRs to be in order, at least.