Procrastinet

Well I'll be Bugaboo'd

filed under: The Weekly WANT IT

As many, many folks can attest, I am a Bugaboo counter-snob. The advent of the Bugaboo Frog, with a basic price of $800 and a package price (with cribby thingy, covers, parasol, etc.) of $1100+ forever skewed the psyche of my generation of parents. Suddenly, spending $300 on a stroller made you look and feel like a heartless cheapskate who doesn't love your kid.

Add to that the impracticality of the Bugaboo non-folding design (okay, yes, it folds, but you have to TAKE IT APART to do so) for those with an urban, apartment-based lifestyle. Then try standing on a crowded subway with one, or being between one and the subway door. And if you don't live in an urban environment, you're transporting your kid by car 90% of the time and a stroller is more or less irrelevent - especially one that costs a thousand bones and eats your whole trunk.

So: I hate Bugaboos. Hate them hate them. Loudly and volubly. And rudely, to the several of our close friends who own them.

Understand, then, the pain that it gives me to announce that on Saturday we registered for one.

Now, and this distinction is critical here, we registered for the Bugaboo Bee, which is the (much) smaller, (much) lighter, (much) more practical version. That said, the fracking thing still costs *mumble mumble* dollars and is a muggerthugging Bugaboo.

Here's what happened: we went to Buy Buy Baby to register for the baby stuff we need for Baby Vou. I did a circuit of the entire stroller area. I had fallen in love with the MicraLite Toro which, while $599 its own damn self, had the vast advantage of not being a Bugaboo.

It also had the questionable design choice of having two large inflatable rear wheels aligned PRECISELY with the plane on which your feet travel when you step forward. Meaning I kicked it in the back wheels EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I TOOK. A STEP.

So: no.

I tried every other decent looking stroller in the place (with the exception of the Maclarens - after the woeful performance of the wheels/tires on our Maclaren Quest, Lisa has declared a flat and absolute ban on Maclarens), folding them down and setting them up, locking the wheels, reclining the seat. Then I grudgingly stepped over to the Bee to check it out.

It pushes smoothly and steers well. Fine. It's nice and compact, at 20" wide. Great. So, I thought, let's see how it folds - hmm, you fiddle these two little white tabs and WHOA.

The thing collapsed to the floor in a compact bundle. I set it back up again. Okay, thinks I, let's see how the seat WHOA! The release was right where it should be, the seat reclined smoothly all the way down to an infant-friendly horizontal.

Yes, I think, but the handlebar is way too low... hang about, what are these little OH MY - the handle extends effortlessly from midget low to Masai tall.

The sun shade comes down far enough to actually shade your baby from the sun (are you LISTENING, Maclaren?!) The seat is reversible so you can stare at your precious bundle. The under-seat basket is easily accessible and roomy for a stroller of this size.

Did I mention it folds up REALLY, REALLY SMALL?

Quite simply, the Bee is demonstrably better at what a stroller is supposed to do than any of the competition. It costs easily twice as much as it has any reason to cost, and I don't care. It's good looking in the details and ugly as hell in the aggregate. Don't care. Nobody is likely to scoop it up off our registry, meaning we'll be buying it for ourselves. Don't care.

So let the mocking begin. I am trading in my contrarian credentials on this one, and joinging the BugaLegions. I can't wait.

Posted by rjt at January 14, 2008 12:06 PM