Saturday 21 January 2012

A Tale of Many Strollers - Part Four: The Final Chapter

When I was pregnant, I was naive enough to think that one stroller would do me from cradle to solo walking. Silly me! The Parasite is nearly three and we're about to retire her collection of strollers as we make her walk on her own to hither and yon. This is the my review of the fourth and final (?) stroller in our collection.

4. The Schwinn Free Runner Grade: C

Eventually it became apparent that I was never, ever going to "find" the time to exercise, I was going to have to make it. Enter the jogging stroller. Since I still had two strollers in use (it's a sickness, I know) I was looking for something pretty inexpensive to keep The Husband from losing his mind. Though if he'd really given me a hard time, I could always use electronic gadgets as ammo against his complaints. But I digress...

The Schwinn Free Runner was another Craigslist find. Or maybe it was Kijiji? Whatever. Jogging strollers are notoriously hard to maneuver, and this one is no exception. The alignment is off so it constantly pulls to the left, to turn corners I need to "pop a wheelie" and I dispensed with the 5-point clips almost immediately. Total PITA to get a wriggly toddler clipped into it. There's really nothing I love about the Free Runner, but it does have a surprising amount of storage space. Which is rendered useless by the fact that it's impossible to handle because it's not like I'd take it shopping.

I purchased it used for something like $60 so I live with the inadequacies, but it retails for nearly $200 here in the Great White North. Had I purchased this new, I would have been one Grumpy Gus. I wouldn't feel bad about passing mine down to someone else when I'm done with it, but I won't sell it and I certainly wouldn't recommend it for purchase to anyone.

And that concludes the series of reviews of the strollers I used in my pushing a kid around career. Though we are trying for a second child, so I might not be done just yet...The rest of the stroller reviews are here:

I'coo Targo
Chicco CT 0.6
Bugaboo Frog

This is not a sponsored post, no compensation has been received. All opinions expressed are my own.

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