FOLDING BIKES BLOG
Stories, tutorials, and advice from the Montague Bikes team.
Install Options
First Timer Bottom Bracket Install on a Boston 8 We took out a square taper bottom bracket last time, and now we're installing something of completely different style. An integrated bottom bracket and crank set situation. These are SRAM Omnium cranks which integrate...
Getting to the Bottom of Things
Getting to the bottom of things, we have the bottom bracket. This is a part of the bicycle we do not often think about. It's down there, at the bottom of the frame, home of the spindle - the place where the cranks connect. Unless the cranks don't move, or there is...
Invisible Bike Helmets?
Recently Focus Forward Films examined the Hovding. It took two lady design students in Sweden seven years to develop. It looks and wears like a scarf, but at the crucial moment inflates into some of the most comprehensive head and neck protection a cyclist could...
Academic Bicycles
It has come to pass that you can study bicycles at school - higher education to be precise. No longer solely the intellectual property of cycling enthusiasts, couriers, athletes, and annoyed motorists, academia has claimed its stake in the ongoing conversation of...
Taking Back the Streets?
What you see above is an image of what the streets of San Jose, CA look like when mapped for ease of bike-ability. Looks like a lot of islands doesn't it? Islands Peter Furth, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Boston's Northeastern University has...
Abandoned Bikes
Whether purchased new or used, a bike is an investment. And yet so often we see bicycles looking like this: Which is not how we imagine our bicycles will look when we first get them. Here at Montague HQ we are of the simple philosophy of fold it up and take it...
Minnesota leading the Change in Bike Friendly
Articles abound in newspapers, magazines, and the web about the battle for the streets; cyclists and motor vehicles vying for the roads. At least this is the tone many writers and commentators take on the evolving transit culture of our world. But in one place at...
Around the World (Almost)
The BBC recently reported on a gentleman who rode his bicycle from China to England for the Olympics. Beginning in May 2012, Chen Guangming left Erchen, Jiangsu province on a journey that would take him more than 85,000 miles to London. Traveling on his...
Changing Focus: Strict Liability in the Future for New York?
The Regional Plan Association (RPA) is the nation's oldest independent urban research and advocacy group. One of the nation's most distinguished of such groups, the RPA has been serving New York since the 1920s. Last week the RPA posted an article by Alex...
Midnight Ride: Boston by Bike at Night
Boston By Bike - At Night Each year for the past 23 years the Back Bay Midnight Pedalers, primarily composed of members of the MIT community (but not exclusively), have led an architecture tour of Boston, at night - on bikes. The tour begins at midnight on Copley...
Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One
Understatement: Brakes are very helpful. Brakes allow we riders to react to those unexpected moments on the road and stop quickly, to help ensure our health and safety, as well as that of other road users. They let us stop as we approach intersections when the light...
Changing Shape
Starting in late summer 2012, Montague Bikes and Prime, Inc. Trucking, based out of Springfield, MO, will be partnering to pioneer an advancement in the trucking industry, a sea change in health. America relies on its trucking industry for economic success, but...
More Ways to Say Hello
Montague HQ in Cambridge is expanding our ways to say hello. We've just launched: a Tumblr and, an Instagram page. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a bicycle is truly beyond description. More ways to share your story, so stop by and say hello! Here we...
For Whom the Red Light Turns
Recently an article ran in The New York Times Opinion Pages by Randy Cohen. The author makes an argument that while running a red light may be illegal it is ethical by his considerations, as his actions could only injure himself. He invokes Emmanuel Kant and...
Tools of the Trade
Tools of the trade. In a mechanic's shop you'll see walls and drawers of tools, shelves of components, it's a treasure trove; with these resources you can handle anything. When you're on your bike it is certainly a good idea to be similarly prepared for the...
How to Get Around
We've been focusing on urban cycling recently, but what happens when you travel? When you live just a bit further than is comfortable to ride from, for whatever reason: time, distance, infrastructure limitations. The image above comes from the current exhibit as the...
Band-aids
With the influx of cycling and new cyclists in our city and around the world, there are sadly more accidents -and bound to be more - as drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians alike acclimate to the new street dynamic. Our emergency services must adjust as well; from...
Farewell My Sweet Auto
Along with all the Olympics news coming out of London, there has been some cycling news outside of the races. Changes in the great historic city of London are reflecting a change in the times, away from the car-centered past and a turn toward a...
