At a time when every SUV is adorned with a flag and everything military is suddenly chic, you don't want to be riding an ordinary mountain bike.
You want a bike you can jump out of a plane with. You want a bike that blends in with the dirt and the jungle. You want a bike you can fold up and throw into the back of your Humvee.
Soldier boys and girls, meet the Paratrooper.
Think of it as a two-wheeled Jeep - human-powered transportation that can triple the range of an infantryman on foot.
"Strong as a tank, light as a day pack, folds like a Swiss army knife," boasts the Montague Corp., of Cambridge, Mass., which makes it.
Montague, which specializes in folding bikes, hooked up with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop a "tactical no-signature mountain bike" for the U.S. Marines. Translation: The military wanted a bike that was compact and sturdy, low profile and low maintenance, and that wouldn't attract enemy attention by making any more noise and heat than a GI.
The result: The Paratrooper Light Bicycle Infantry (that's LBI to you).
"Hundreds" of the bikes are being used by the Marines, special forces and military police, Montague says. They have been deployed in Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom (exactly how many is "classified information," a company spokeswoman said).
Now, due to popular demand, the Paratrooper is available to patriotic civilians. For just $649.99, you can be the first on your block to own the same "tactical stealth mountain bike" that is stalking Osama bin Laden!
When speaking of weaponry and equipment, your typical Pentagon procurement officer is unable to complete a sentence without using the word capability. So let's look at the Paratrooper's capabilities:
It's a full-size mountain bike with 26-inch wheels.
In less than 30 seconds, without tools, it folds into a tidy package - roughly three feet by three feet by one foot - without breaking any frame tubes.
Its frame is made of aluminum, and the whole bike weighs only 29 pounds.
It rocks, mainly because it's painted "cammy green," as in camouflage green, a close cousin of olive drab.
Naturally, I had to try one. Montague shipped a sample bike to the office. It caused a sensation. No sooner did I get it out of the box and assembled than a colleague - a granola-gobbling lovable lefty who probably protested the ROTC in college - gleefully grabbed it and zipped down the corridor like a kid showing off his first two-wheeler.
