Silver Cross Surf Review

The Silver Cross Surf is a pushchair that I have wanted to try out for a while! I was very excited when the day came to open the box.

First out of the box was a teeny tiny chassis!!! The chassis is dinky with no wheels on. Even with wheels on, the chassis is still pretty flat, very neat and small, and light. However with the rear wheels added on the chassis does become wider, but the wheels are easily popped off to store. Fantastic! I am finding the Surf a really useful car pushchair because the chassis is so light to lift in and out. I can easily do it one handed and the seat simply drops onto the top.

However the small neat chassis is let down in the folding department by the huge seat unit which simply will not squash flat. It’s a rigid half egg shell shape. To be honest, for me that was a bit of a shame because so many people want a great looking small folding pushchair, and if the seat unit had been able to squash flatter like say the Baby Jogger City Select seat, then I think the Surf would have appealed to more people. However with the rigid seat unit, I struggled to even balance the seat on the chassis or floor – it just wobbled and fell over, and already the rear of the seat is dirty, and the tip of the hood is scratched from trying to store it in the best way possible.

However the styling and look of the Silver Cross Surf is great – I love the shapes, I love the chassis. These are all huge positive points which undoubtably make people look twice at the Surf.

Child Comfort and Harness

The huge seat is also a massive advantage too – our 3.4 year old, at 102cms tall, looked incredibly comfy in the Surf seat unit. She had loads of head room with the hood set on the higher setting (there are two settings). Unusually the Surf seat is wider with the soft squidgy liner in, rather than when the liner is removed, because the seat widens out at the sides towards the top. The calf to footrest length is good, with a good ledge for small feet to rest on, which is great for an older toddler. However the footrest is integrated so is not adjustable. This means that a sleeping baby or child can not have its feet level with its body when sleeping, nor can the legs of a baby be raised to flat when they are small, which is something I do currently with my 20 month old in other pushchairs. The seat can both parent and outward face. Two buttons release the seat unit and it is easy to then turn the seat around. The seat has three recline positions including flat in both directions. Two buttons need pressing in – so it is a two handed recline, but its been easy enough to do with both our children in the seat.

The harness I have mixed feelings over. I absolutely love how the crotch strap comes up high onto the child’s tummy. No chance of an easy toddler escape through the shoulder straps. I like the soft webbing type harness that is easily adjustable. But I really do not like the way the bottom of the shoulder straps slide onto the buckle because almost every time I come to do the harness up at least one side has fallen off, or needs pushing back on, before I can do the seats harnesses up. Its driving me a little nutty. At the start of the test run, the webbing was quite stiff so it was easy to thread back on, but at this stage the webbing is bent and is more flexible. This is making it harder to keep threading the harness back on again. I have to say that I am tempted to try to sew the upper piece of harness onto the lower piece just to stop the upper piece from coming off. The harness buckle itself requires the side clips to be inserted at a really odd angle. Its taking me a while to find the correct angle to insert them into the housing. It is simple for an adult to release the harness. But I do think the Silver Cross harnesses / buckles in this style really are not the most user friendly. It is something relatively minor but its affecting userbility for us.

The seat is very upright – a really great seating position for toddlers – but I am very conscious that by the time I have messed around making the harness back into a five point one each time, and then worked out the awkward angle that the harness fits into the buckle, that my 20 month old son is likely to have slid his way forwards under the bumper bar and onto the floor. On top of that, when the harness is not done up, the liner slides forwards a long way, taking my son with it! So that needs hoiking up too before the harness can be done up! I have started to put my son into the seat when slightly reclined now just so that I know he is safe. Once my son is in the seat unit he sits very nicely. The seat is in a lovely high position for a great view out. A swing away bumper bar is included. Due to the seat feeling slightly higher than most, I have been using the swing away feature quite a lot to save me having to lift my son high over the top of it when putting him in the seat. Its simple to do.

But, I do have another issue – this is the first pushchair I have seen it with my son – and that is aeroplane legs. Because the Surf seat is so open at the sides, plus with no lift up footrest, my youngest can easily swing both legs out to either side, or even the same side!! Its making life dangerous at present as I have to tuck his feet in to go through doors!! Even in his sleep today, he had aeroplane legs!!!  I know that is probably unique to my child but it does cause me real issues with safety and in the past I have sold a pushchair after my daughter managed to swipe everything off a supermarket shelf by sticking her feet out suddenly! But this does demonstrate how exposed the seat is – which can also be a positive ie a great view – as well as a negative.

The hood is large and has a small visor piece on the front. It’s easy to pull up over the child and keeps its shape wherever you stop it. There’s no worrying about it flapping in the wind, and pushes back nearly flush with the seat when not being used. There is a small peekaboo window in the rear of the hood which is well placed to see the child clearly.

Newborn Mode

The Silver Cross Surf is suitable from birth with the seat in the flat position and with the addition of the included fleecy babynest. This has a wedge shaped bottom which flattens out the bucket shape of the Surf seat and makes it flatter for a newborn. We tried it into the pushchair and whilst it’s a brilliant idea, we weren’t convinced, we thought the harness straps were then very tighten a small baby although across time the baby weight would squish the liner down a bit. But we also felt that the baby feel very exposed on the surface of the pushchair. Great idea but we would prefer to buy the (very expensive) Surf carrycot for a newborn.

We have the Linen Silver Cross Surf which isn’t the standard Surf. Hence our chassis, bumper bar etc are all different to the norm. But we love the styling of the Surf – it looks incredibly smart with whichever chassis . I love the finish to the hood, the neat rim around the hood and the hood ribs, the leather bumper bar and the wheels with the one single long spoke look neat.

The rear tyres are large puncture proof air-like tyres. The front wheels are tiny small plastic lockable swivel wheels.

The brake is great – easy to find and to flick on. There is a visible green pop up button which shows that the brake has engaged. This small green button needs pushing in to release the brake. I love the visual green indicator check!

Storage!

Another huge disappointment has been the extremely poor storage space on the Surf. I actually can’t think of a pushchair with worse storage space other than the other (Safety 1st) Surf that we own. Even the Quinny Zapp or Maxi-Cosi Noa pushchair baskets can hold more than the teeny Surf ‘basket’! The basket is barely bigger than an iPhone in size and also not much deeper than an iPhone stood on its end. I would like to challenge the picture that Silver Cross have on their website of a carton of milk, a bunch of bananas and a soft toy all in the basket with space to spare!!! HOW????? I managed to wedge one corner of my handbag into the basket, but it wasn’t exactly sensible, and there was far more handbag out of the basket than in it!

We already knew that the Surf wasn’t the pushchair to take to do our weekly shop with, but we do really need some basket space! A further issue for me was that the pushchair is back heavy which meant that hanging a handbag off the handle did make the pushchair feel ‘tippy’ and back heavy. We were forced to hang my handbag on the handlebar (I ran out of hands to carry stuff on swimming day) but it meant having to have the handle on the lowest setting to feel less tippy. There aren’t many pushchairs where I couldn’t hang my handbag off the rear, and with a pushchair with almost no alternative storage then being able to do so had to be an essential for me. So to be honest, I have felt a bit like a pack horses this week carrying the kit (coats, paintings, swimming bags) that I normally throw under the pushchair which also importantly meant that my hands were not free to hold my toddlers hand and to push at the same time. I know there is a Lobster Pot basket that can be bought to give additional storage (I believe this comes as standard with the latest Surf’s), but I was loathe to pay extra for one, and in reality I wasn’t entirely sure how much extra useful space I would gain, nor how good the access is into it.

*Edit* At the Harrogate Nursery Fair, we saw that the Surf had a new rectangular basket underneath which was great, although still not terribly big. But the smaller front basket has now been removed which was a bit of a shame TBH. All storage was desperately needed on the Surf – even the small front basket.

Fold

The Silver Cross Surf fold is one of the weirdest I have ever seen. I am not entirely sure that I can even describe it. You must first apply the brake – which I really like to be honest. Then the seat needs removing. The seat removal is brilliant – there are two buttons – one red on one side, and one grey. If the red button is depressed then it sticks leaving you to press the other button in with one hand, and to lift the seat off with the other! A great piece of design. Next you push the handle in sharply to ”break’ it as you do with say a Peach or Joolz. But then you push the handle forwards a bit and as you lean over with the handle you need to press to release a large red button near the rear wheels which then releases the rest of the mechanism, whereby you bring the handle back towards you again and it folds neatly. There is a clip to hold the chassis together. I do feel a bit like I am rowing a boat each time I fold!

Opening is a similar sort of strange affair – I still haven’t quite got the hang of it after a couple of weeks of using the pushchair!! It’s the push the handle backwards to then bring it forwards to click, and the bring the handle backwards again motion which is odd. If you dont hear the click then you are once again left feeling like you are rowing a boat to get the chassis to click into place!  I am not even entirely sure that I am describing this correctly, so apologies if its inaccurate! I think it’s more by chance that it ends up open! One word of warning, I went to take the chassis out of the car yesterday and as I tried to lift it out the whole thing sprung open at me rather alarmingly. It amazingly ended up open on the floor but it was a bit of a shock. It made me wonder if the closing clip isn’t secure enough.

“Go anywhere”

The words above are a quote from the Silver Cross 2011 catalogue, and the Surf marketing pitch on page 9. I quote: “The Surf…..is meant for the outdoors – a rugged beach, a tangled knotted wood…..the reason we know it will go anywhere is the suspension!” I remember the Best Buggy Focus Group discussing this claim when we first read it and being completely disbelieving……let me tell you having attempted to take the Surf onto the beach and through a fairly average wood – not even a “tangled knotted” one – the Surf barely made it more than a foot off the woodland path into the fallen leaves or greenery (we tried two routes) towards the tangled knotted part, or barely a foot off the concrete gangway onto the beach. So although the suspension may be taken anywhere, you will be carrying it through the woods or across the beach because those tiny front wheels (even locked) certainly wont be allowing you to move anywhere once you arrive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In our very humble opinion, the Surf should only be considered as urban pushchair – its perfect for shopping trips, walks along pavement or even fairly flat paths, for a trip to the park when the ground isn’t too soft, but as the photos show, the Surf really is not the off road pushchair that the catalogue seems to imply the Surf is!

We have been in contact with Silver Cross who have confirmed that the Surf is an “all terrain” pushchair  but wouldn’t work on wet sand (we tried it on dry sand) but in their “testing Surf did perform on paths through woods and firm sand……“. Silver Cross said “We don’t feel that our claims are false as we have genuinely tested Surf under the conditions shown. However from your photographs you have clearly experienced problems when off the beaten track.” I have to say, we didn’t exactly go far off the beaten track – the beach is in the centre of a seaside resort (unlike the truly rugged beach that we took the Bugaboo Donkey too) and the Surf barely got a foot or so off the well worn path in the wood next to a main road! We dont feel that the Surf performing on paths through woods is really the “tangled knotted woods” it was described for use in. This pushchair really needs to live up to the claims and expectations that have been set by Silver Cross, and not just the lovely newly washed sand that Silver Cross show in their promotional video. How did that pushchair get onto the beach? I dont know of any beaches where the sand is newly washed right to the land access point.

However, this is where my write up takes an interesting turn. We wrote most of this review before the Harrogate Nursery Show (2012) and were invited by Silver Cross to see the new developments on their stand, so we held back from publishing this review. Amongst the developments was the new Surf Elevation which has large air filled tyres with chunky tread, better suspension and clearance which as the new 2012 catalogue says “to produce a true off roader that effortlessly smooths out any humps and bumps and easily negotiates everything in its path“. I have to say, neither I, nor the Best Buggy Focus group are convinced by this claim, simply because giving tiny front wheels a bit of tread does not mean that the pushchair will push any easier off road than the original version!!! An “off roader” and as Silver Cross says it is a “true off roader” needs to be able to cope as they previously suggested with a bit of sand on an average beach and an off path walk in the woods – and to be honest should be able to cope with much more eg mud, pot holes etc to be a “true off roader”. The 2012 catalogue uses other words such as “rough terrain” and “off road tyres“. Once again the catalogue sings the praises of the air suspension – but to be able to use the suspension properly you need to be able to get off the main road or footpath!! So at this point I would like to invite Silver Cross to come to Best Buggy HQ with either the normal Surf, or the new Surf Elevation, and either show us what we are doing wrong with the regular Surf, or show us how the new chunky tread air tyres of the Surf Elevation make it into a “true off roader“. We have a choice of beaches – both seaside and lake side, and woodland to choose from.

I do know in future there will be a single large jogger wheel option which is a better “all terrain option” (see our Harrogate photos) but we were told this was some time off production as yet.

As for the suspension – I was intrigued by the emphasis on the Surf’s air suspension in the catalogue – but hmmm – where is it?! I have been pushing the Surf around and its not the softest push. In fact it feels quite a hard to medium ride. I really thought the suspension would make this a fairly bouncy pram to push, but it isn’t!

Other points to note

The handlebar feels lovely though – very comfy to hold. It is foam covered with a central button in the centre to adjust the handle height and to start the fold off. The handle has three positions which cover a good range. However there is some movement in my handle which feels a bit disconcerting at times.

On flat ground the Surf is very easy to steer and manoeuvre. It weaves easily around shops and through doorways.

There is also a flap on the rear of the seat for harness adjustment. Although this does spoil the line of the back, it is far easier than trying to wiggle an arm inside the fabric from the rear as some other pushchairs demand!

The apron / footmuff whilst not thick, is a nice touch to make the Surf look smart, especially in newborn mode. It is simple to attach (when you know how!) and looks great.

Whilst the Surf feels a good quality – with excellent quality fabrics, nicely finished, tidy looking etc we have had a small button from the side of the chassis pop off a couple of times. However there is a small stopper on the side of the chassis which fell out last week. Fortunately we spotted it and popped it back in. But I have today noticed that the stopper is completely missing which is a shame for a pushchair that still is pretty new.

The Surf comes with an essentials pack.  The essentials pack includes the hood, a parasol, liner and an apron. There is a choice of colours for this. Ours matched the linen fabric, but we could have chosen a different colour. The box also contained the newborn fleecy babynest with harness pads, a sun cover and raincover and the bumper bar.

I have to say, that although you seem to get a lot for your money when you open the box, and the details have been thought about to ensure you have everything you need from birth to three, I think for functionailty it is a lot of money. This is a pushchair that I could easily see being swapped for a stroller 6-12 months down the line – which is not something I look for when spending over £500 on a pushchair.

Summary

So all round I have to say this is a mixed review. There is so much good about the Silver Cross Surf: the great looks (we love the magnesium alloy chassis with the bright colours), or the tall, wide, upright seat, the liner, the inclusion of a parasol and the fleecy baby nest, the large hood, seat removal, easy manoeuverability on flat ground or comfortable handle. But there are so many small things eg the harness, basket, fold, that with some attention to detail could be made that bit better or easier to use, which would then make the Surf an excellent pushchair.