Wes and I have been debating the relative merits of the various ridiculously expensive strolles for many, many years now. We had thought it was a simple debate between the Bugaboo and the Stokke Xplory. The first two rounds of in-person exploration of the two landed us firmly in the Bug camp. There were times we thought that the decision had really been firmly made. We thought the Xplory was too plasticky the first time we saw it. The second time, when I was pregnant with the penguin, we thought that the mechanism for taking off the bassinet was too difficult. A green Bug, we decided. We were seemingly done.
But time is a funny thing, and TK has taken a damn long time to be made. We have changed our minds a zillion times. We have explored more stroller websites than seems natural. We have read more daddytypes posts about strollers than could posisbly be good for us. And now we can't decide again.
And now there are more options!
And now every single solitary person in Park Slope is driving a Bugaboo.
Seriously. The other morning I went in to work late when I was feeling sick. It was 10 am and I was at the corner of my street and I looked around while waiting for the light to change. I spotted 7 strollers from where I stood and 4 of them were Bugs.
I am not completely thrilled with following the herd, but when a product is good, people buy it. I could get over this. Wes, though, would really like to be different. He will go with the Bug if we really decide it is the BEST but if there is an alternative that is just as good, it might win on just not being the Bug.
So. Mutsy came onto the scene because it is suddenly available in the U.S. More specifically, it is now at Buy B*y B*by (ie, the big, scary baby store), where we can compare the three front runners. These are up for consideration because they can all hold a bassinet, a seat, or a carseat - that's our standard. They are all damn heavy and will be too much for me to carry down stairs to a subway alone (though we could handle it together), so we are aware that we will eventually need a cheap umbrella stroller. But a very large percentage of my time is spent in my neighborhood walking, and we want one of these fabulous strollers mostly for that. So we went for more research at the big, scary baby store.
(They also have the Orbit, which we used to find interesting, but which we did not like in person and which I would not buy anyway because A) the car seat really hasn't been tested much and B) you have to pay for all the pieces separately and that's lame.)
We got demos tonight in the Mutsy and the Xplory and learned that the Xplory isn't really hard to take apart - we just had a bad salesperson at the last store where we saw it. The folding mechanism on the Mutsy is about a zillion times easier than either the Bug or the Xplory, and that's a really nice feature. Both of them are higher up than the Bug, which we really like. The Xplory's wheel base is a tiny bit narrower than the other two, though not by a lot. Mutsy has more accessories and fun things, like stands to make the seat into a bouncer or standalone bassinet, and a special toddler fun seat with steering wheel that looks awesome. The Mutsy and the Xplory have non-air-filled tires, which means not having to pump them up and not worrying about popping them.
Wes' problem with the Mutsy is that it looks a lot like the Bugaboo and he doesn't want anyone to think that he has a Bugaboo "knock-off." The Mutsy price tag is still extremely high (though a couple hundred less than the other two) and that alone makes it no knock-off in my opinion. Plus, stroller conoisseurs will know that it is a new and special thing. People will start to recognize it as they have the Quinny strollers (still not available in the U.S. and not adaptable with U.S. carseats - otherwise we would be investigating them).
I would almost venture to say that we are now deciding between the Mutsy and the Xplory. But the Bugaboo has a way of winning us back every so often so I can't say that yet. We have such a very long time to go, still.
Bugaboo
Mutsy
Xplory
