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Baby Jogger City Select Review by Best Buggy

I love the Baby Jogger City Select so much that I don’t even know where to begin writing a review on it!!

I just love it! Its a pushchair that excites me everytime I use it. I love choosing which seating position suits our outing the best. I love the way my children can face each other or face outwards. I love hearing my daughter chatting to my baby son whilst I can see his smiling face. I love being able to hear my daughter clearly as she sits just in front of me. My daughter adores playing Peekaboo in the huge hoods – so huge that my raincover remains brand new in its wrapper. I like playing Peekaboo back through the magnetically closing windows on the top of the hood back. I love being able to choose between seat / carrycot or car seat options. Whilst it may be seen as a niggle for some mums, I actually like constructing the City Select – putting the adaptors in and putting the seats in place. I love the fact my children look comfortable with plenty of head and leg room. The quick fold mechanism is amazing.

It is incredibly sturdy – its solid – even if you hang bags from the handlebar (not recommended by Baby Jogger), but perfectly possible. Best of all I love the huge shopping basket that comfortably takes changing bags, shopping and more – enough for an entire day of shopping without needing to return to the car to unload. And finally I love the fold – the way the wheels pop off quickly and easily, and that chassis folds down to a simple neat square leaving the seats a couple of inches flat on top. We went away for a weeks holiday when my son was a couple of months old. The car was jam packed to the ceiling and the City Select including carrycot just simply slid onto the top of everything! Amazing! We actually store our seats at home, side by side hanging on the back of a door! After the awkward curved shaped seats of my previous pushchair, the iCandy Peach Blossom, it was bliss that everything sat so neatly together.

I have had mine almost 9 months now and its been fab! It’t not been without its niggles – a sticking adaptor, a broken handle and one very very flat “forever” tyre and another that isn’t great. But I can forgive these because my retailer offers fantastic customer service and they were fixed within the week.  And also I was desperate to buy a City Select and so got one of the first off the ship….and as with most new pushchairs including the Bugaboo Chameleon, there are always niggles. But I can also forgive these for the pleasure the Baby Jogger City Select gives me. For the fun I have with it. For its good looks and the times I have been stopped by people to ask what pushchair it is.

There’s the other great features like the handbrake which is simply brilliant. The one handed recline. The extending handlebar that suits me and my husband, the lockable wheels, the easy adjust harnesses with 5 height positions. There’s lots more…

My son loved the carrycot. It is the biggest carrycot I have used. You form the carrycot by buying the carrycot fabric. You then unpopper the seat fabric from the frame, swap the adjustable footrest and then popper on the carrycot fabric. My son stayed in it until he was almost 6 months, at which point he didn’t want to be laid flat. However despite him being very tall, I am sure now at 8 months, he would still easily have fitted into the carrycot. We believe the carrycot isn’t suitable for overnight sleeping. One good feature of the hoods is that you can move them like a sunshade over your child should you wish. There is a mesh at the back of the hood which comes down over the back of the seat to hold the hood down. In carrycot mode this is removed and can be zippered onto the front of the hood as an insect mesh. However in reality the front flaps and insects can easily get in. The foot rest extends - there are two positions – and then it also rotates up and down for comfort. The hood has two height positions on the seat frame too. The seats recline easily into up to 3 positions.

The Baby Jogger City Select has been a dream to push. I have to admit I use mine mainly around shopping centres and on all day outings where it is relatively flat. However the City Select does handle brilliantly on our gravel drive – much better than my Bugaboo Chameleon ever did even in reverse mode! There is one niggle and that is that it can be hard to tip the City Select up kerbs. But I am good now at spotting drop kerbs and I often go the extra few feet to use a drop kerb. But its not impossible to get the City Select up a kerb – you just need to press down hard and go for it! Others have said they find the City Select heavy with two children in – maybe we aren’t there yet, but more likely I don’t use roads which are cambered or hilly.

As a tandem, I dont think you can currently buy anything that even comes close to the City Select for a superb design, good equally sized seating arrangements, access to the children and shopping, easy and small fold. Each seat can hold a child up to 45lbs which is rare (if not unknown) in a tandem. So it had great longevity for twins. You can put on two carrycots or two Maxi Cosi Pebble or Cabriofix car seats. There are over 18 seating combinations that I know of…and probably even some more! That offers huge flexibilty. However there is a compromise in that you may need to adjust the foot rest into different positions to accommodate the children comfortably. For example my daughter when at the top facing her sibling at the bottom has to have her foot rest fully up to allow him room for his legs. This means her legs end up a bit cramped. But to be honest, she’s not complained yet and if and when she does, I will simply choose a different position for the two of them!

What I haven’t said is that the City Select is a fab single pushchair as well. Being honest its probably a bit wide and chunky for most people to have as a single, but if you have or plan to have a second child then if you don’t mind this, its good to think ahead and save money long term!!!

I absolutely love my City Select…..its given me and the children hours of pleasure whilst doing the job its intended for ie carrying my children, kit and shopping around easily. It quite simply works as a fab tandem.

However, Baby Jogger, if you are reading this, a few inches to the frame would make the City Select able to take a parent facing carrycot at the top whilst your toddler faces the world at the front…its almost possible now, but not quite..and a lot of mums-to-be that I meet want this! And “everlasting air” tyres to the front wheels would make things much easier to push :)

*EDIT* Sadly we were forced to stop using the Baby Jogger City Select by the time our baby was just 10 months old and our toddler was 2.5 years old. The combined weight of the two children (approx 20kgs) was just too heavy to push. We do a regular route every day and out of the blue I started to get pains in my lower arms. I did a couple more runs before admitting defeat. It was a sad day when the Baby Jogger City Select got sold and it is still missed.

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