Jog strollers - how soon and which one

Triathlon Forum
1

My wife gave birth to the 2030 Kona winner on Friday. Its our first, and it is the absolute greatest. Havent worked out in about a week, and realistically will be several weeks before I do again, but it would seem the best way to spend time with my new guy, give my wife a break, and still get something in is to invest in a jog stroller. I assume thats not recommended untl hes at least six months or so? How young is too young?

Also, I live in the Northeast, and its starting to get cold, so thats a consideration too.

Finally, which is the best / most durable?

Thanks

2

Congrats. Though a few weeks older, I don’t see my son peaking at the iron distance until he is 32… Long story.

Find a book called “Baby Bargains” or something like that. It does a great job of breaking down every detail necessary. Use this as an appendix (weird!?) to what your friends know - those that have been there and done that.

3

  1. Congratulations

  2. Yes, a jogging stroller is a good investment. They are also just great to use as a stroller

  3. Yes, you need to wait for several months before using one with your baby.

  4. Yes, you need to be VERY careful about keeping baby warm when out in the stroller in cooler. Remember, he’s not doing any work. North Eastern winter conditions mnay not be the best. Better wait until spring.

  5. Yes, it is a great way to get in some training.

4

It depends on your needs. When my wife and I looked into this we decided that ease of folding and size when folded were very important bacause we live in a small place and wanted to bring the stroller in the car in occasion, we went with the Bob brand and got the Ironman model because it is the lightest in the lineup. The stoller has been great and my son (now 1yr) loves it. One had compact folding with suspension to smooth out the ride.

If you have a large house and will just roll the stroller into/out of the garage the I think Baby Jogger is one of the best but I found it more cumbersome to fold and store.

Some will tell you to get 20inch wheels but I have had no problems with the 16inch wheels on the Bob.

I think I used mine when my son was ~5months. I think that the baby should be able to hold his head up so he isn’t a bobble-head doll when you hit a bump.

Enjoy your new live, your training will suffer for a while but it is worth it.

Andrew

5

I have read that you should wait until one year. I waited longer for a variety of reasons. You do need to be careful; a child’s head really bangs around if your sidewalk is at all uneven or going or and off curbs.

It is a great idea. My son loves to go running in the stroller although I always reward his patience by making sure the run ends at a playground. I also don’t go much more than 5 miles or so because he starts to get a little antsy, which makes sense because toddlers need to run around and do things.

It’s also a good workout because you are pushing a good deal more weight. I definitely notice the difference between a five mile run without stroller and one pushing the stroller. I saw the man that drags and pushes his adult son through IM Hawaii every year again on Saturday and was really impressed given the effect that my son’s less than 30 pounds has on my running.

6

Congratulations on the future Kona winner!!!

We just purchased a jogging stroller for our 6 month old. She loves to go running. Hopefully, this fall she will be running faster.

We purchased the 10-K Ultra from Dick’s sporting goods. It is made by Pacific Bicycles which is Schwinn according to the package information inside. It is light, rolls well, and fits in the car trunk easily. It has 16 inch wheels which some people say 20 inch wheels but they seem to work fine for me. The other bonus is that only cost aout 1/3 of what a new ‘baby jogger’ brand would cost and I feel pretty good about its quality and safety. Be careful of the weather as noted by a previous poster.

Good luck and get plenty of sleep!!!

7

Congrats on birth.

We’ve got a 9yr old BabyJogger II at home. We got it when there wasn’t much choice out in the market. So we paid I want to say almost $300 for it.

That being said it was money well spent, as it has carried all 3 of our sons at one point or another, and is still in great shape. lite-weight, it’s easy to remove all 3 wheels and the frame breaks down just as easy. After a muddy trail run you can hit it with a hose and the nylon drys quick. sun, wind, rain protectors availalbe

From what I’ve seen alot of the copies out there now look alot heavier and have alot more plastic do dads and add-ons.

Don’t plan on taking them on anything but packed/smooth trails. neither the stroller or the baby handled roots very well. and they don’t work very well as a regualr-stroller alternative in stores or malls.

Can’t remember when we first started putting the boyz in the jogger. I do remember having to add a few rolled blankets to ensure their heads were stable when they fell asleep, usually 10mins into any length walk or run, but both my wife and I used it alot.

make sure you always use teh wrist tether. Last December I was out running with our youngest (4). I came around a corner that was icey, totally lost my footing and went sprawling on my chest and face. Only thing that stopped jogger from going into the street was wrist tether.

Good luck hope that helps

Jim

8

Congratulations! My son is now three and I really miss our runs together. Now I can’t wait until he’s old enough to acually run with me.

Concerning when, I remember reading that you should wait until the child is 6 months old so that his neck is strong enough to support his head. In my case, that’s about when we started, and it semed to be about right. Also, at 6 mos., they are a little less labor intensive and actually enjoy the ride.

9

I started using ours around 6 months I think. The most important thing is your childs head control. Be very careful, a friend here in Bend went running with her child at a few months and stepped on the tether that goes around your wrist and and it jarred the baby and the baby has had all the problems as if it was a shaken baby, seizures and other problems. So be safe and wait until your baby has pretty good head control.

Kerry

I have the trek stroller with 20 in wheels and it easily converts into a bike trailer. I have been really happy with it as both a jogger and a bike trailer.

10

I will be in the market as well in 6 months… I’m looking at the chariot line:

http://www.chariotcarriers.com/html_english/cougar_sx.htm

Perfect for multisport, it’s a combination stroller/jogger/bike-trailer. You can even take it X-country skiing. They sell them at REI. I’m looking at the SX. It’s spendy ~950, but aero baby! I’m going to use the 20 percent coupon that comes with my dividend in Dec. It folds up very quickly and the build quality is perfect. I won’t be able to give a users report for another year, but I’m already lusting after it like a new bike.

11

Koolstride makes the best single, with baby jogger coming in second.

-Runabout makes the best double to quint (I have the triple).

-Make sure to get the rain cover since it keeps in the heat and prevents wind blowing. Use fleece. take a bottle. Dont try to go for over an hour; many just wont take it that long (repeat loops are OK).

Another kick is racing with the kids in the jogger. It is fun, and when they are able to figure out what is going on, they seem to enjoy it as well (much more than running alone on a road).

I would not try running before they are a couple months old. The Kool stride allows you to lay the child more ‘flat’ so that they do not have the bounding motion bouncing their head around. It is hard to say an exact time, since babies have differing developmental timing (it is very individual). Wait until they have at least some head control, and use an extra head/neck support thingy util they have real control. Dont try doing any trail running with them in the jogger until they have some serious head control as well.

Hope this helps.

Stephen J

12

I have the Kool Stride single with 20"s and it works great. I bought it for my first kid 7 years ago and it is still used today for my second. You can use it before 6 months if you use one of those head and neck pads used in car seats, but be sure the roads are smooth, lower the seat and take it easy.

Last Sunday a guy lined up for the Primo’s 1/2 mary in Danville with a kid in the Ironman stroller. He crushed me and most everybody else while pushing a stroller.

Dave

13

jumping on the Kool Stride bandwagon here…VERY happy with the one we had. newer models have an even easier fold-down mechanism than ours did. kids loved it. put them to sleep sometimes.

recommend 20" wheels regardless of brand, and cambered rear wheels for excellent handling. also concur on wrist strap usage, cold-weather concerns (get a fairing/rain shield if one is offered) and general age comments (head control is the key) from previous posters.

one thing I don’t think I’ve seen mentioned yet: steerable (non-fixed) front wheels. NO NO NO NO. nice for walking strollers thru the mall…bad idea for anything approaching a serious run. controlling even the best handling strollers (I had 1-2 finger control w/ our Kool Stride Paramount) already compromises your running mechanics. adding a degree of freedom to the front wheel means even more active control (and technique compromises) is necessary because

A) almost nowhere you run is dead-flat and

B) even if you’re controlling the stroller from dead-center on the bar, your running mechanics will induce some sideways load component into the bar and try to make the thing wander off course

fixed fronts resist B and go where you point them, period. I could run on seriously off-camber road shoulders and our Kool Stride never headed for the ditch. caveat: make sure that fixed front is centered in the dropouts, or the jogger will always try to creep one way or the other. this is what steerable-front proponents tend to point to when arguing against fixed-front.

bottom line: don’t compromise. if you’re planning to RUN with your kid, get a serious jogger. get a proper stroller for everything else.

14

Wait until at least 6 months (Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto recommends 1 year though). FRiends have the Chariot brand. We are waiting until Christmas to get ours (our guy is 1 year old in two weeks but he was a premie so we are waiting a bit longer).

You can get one from Chariot that converts from running stroller to bike trailer pretty easily so you can do that brick you should be doing. I have run with my friends and it is very smooth and good. Also has a roof etc for weather protection.

www.chariotcarriers.com/

15

Wait until at least 6 months (Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto recommends 1 year though).

The 1 year is the idiot proof criteria (and even 6 months). We’ve been using a baby jogger with our baby since he was 2 months old. However, he had very early good neck support, we used a padded head brace and only used the jogger on a perfectly smooth, flat, bicycle/walking path, completely separated from traffic.

A normal stroller shakes a LOT more on a standard sidewalk than a baby jogger on smooth pavement at running speed. Gee, a baby in a car seat shakes a LOT more (especially on the bad Montreal pavement) than the jogger.

I sure won’t run with my kid anywhere else untill he is at least 6 months old, and no dirt trail until he is one. Does he like it ? He falls asleep automatically…

The most dangerous thing you can do with your kid is to drive your car.

Francois in Montreal

16

Green & all,

I had a whole long reply typed up and lost my network connection and 30 minutes of typing. Here’s the short version.

I work at a running/tri shop in a very family-oriented neighborhood in Brooklyn. We sell a LOT of jogging strollers, so we looked very carefully at the market to choose the best. The answer: the BOB SUV stroller. I have used it myself for the past two years and LOVE it. Our customers send their friends to buy one because they love it.

The basic model comes in 3 colors, of which black is by far the best looking. There’s also an “Ironman” M-Dot branded version if you want your future star to help keep WTC in business. :slight_smile:

There’s a lot of things to like about the stroller: it’s light, it folds easily, it has a relatively short wheelbase so you can maneuver it, it’s narrow so you can get it through doors, it can carry up to 70 lbs of kid+gear. It’s got reflective tape in a lot of places. It has a handbrake with a lock. All three wheels are quick release so you can store it and fit it in your trunk easily.

The best feature of the BOB isn’t in the stroller, it’s in the weather shield. The weather protector for the BOB wraps completely around the cockpit and does such a good job keeping out wind and rain that they cover it with warnings reminding you to make sure the air flap is open in the back or you’ll suffocate your child! It’s an obnoxious bright yellow that only a cyclist would appreciate, but in bad weather you will certainly be seen. (Plus, it looks good on the black stroller.)

They also sell a “console” that attaches to the handlebar that holds two waterbottles and has a pocket for extra stuff, like money or kid snacks. Didn’t know about it the first year, now I wouldn’t know what to do without it. Very convenient.

In addition to the BOB, you’ll want a bag to put your kid(s) in to keep them warm. I use and highly recommend the Nano bag, which has a wind resistant outer layer of nylon around a warm fuzzy layer. It zips up to your child’s chin and keeps him warm & toasty. I had my son out in January in 10 degree weather with the weather shield and the Gaga bag (Nano bag’s bigger cousin) and he was fine.

As to age: jogging strollers do nothing to support the kid’s head, so they need to be able to hold their head up. I think 6 months is too conservative; if your child can sit in a bouncy seat (the kind with the spring that hangs in a doorway) or a saucer and support himself, he’ll be fine in a jogging stroller. For my son, that was 4 months. For my daughter, it’ll be 5 months, probably.

To answer your inevitable question about a seat for the back of your bike, wait until at least a year. It’s one thing to hold your head up, it’s another to do it wearing a helmet. Plus, baby’s skulls aren’t fully formed and a crash could be … very bad. I do have my eye on a behind the bike trailer for both kids, so I can be the only person in Prospect Park in my aerobars hauling a trailer up the hill. :slight_smile:

PM me if you want prices or more info.

Lee Silverman
JackRabbit Sports
Park Slope, Brooklyn

17

We bought a Kool-Stop/Kool-Stride older model. Opted for the steel wheels rather than alloy as it didn’t seem to be worth the money. Ours has lasted through three kids, and other than a bit of fading is doing fine. Personally, I didn’t really like running with the stroller, so we use it more for walking and trips over uneven pavement, gravel, etc. where a swivel-wheeled small-wheel stroller would drive you crazy. The hand brake is pretty lousy, but we never use it anyway. I’ve seen lots of other strollers of friends and on the streets, and I still can’t say that I’d prefer any other over the Kool-Stop.

You definitely can’t use a jogging stroller as your “everyday” stroller. We have a cheap umbrella stroller that we can carry easily and take on planes, and a slightly nicer stroller that you can push with one hand without going sideways all the time. We also have a Kelty backpack with a sun/rain cover that has held up well through the years. We also have a two-seat trailer (made by Schwinn/Trek I think) that has been useful, but not gotten as much use as I would have thought with me being primarily a cyclist. This year I didn’t use it much at all until my four-year old daughter learned to ride her two-wheeler. Now she wants to go for rides all the time, and I use the trailer to take the others to the playground.

In my experience, these are all more family-outing oriented than training enabling. With reduced expectations on your part you may well find that some activity is better than none, but I found the most beneficial effect was just giving my wife some down time without the kids.

18

Check out the Giant Prerunner LX. After much reserach I settled on this one (price was right also). Although new to the baby jogger market, I can say its a well made jogger. Veru durable and smooth over all terrain- on and off road. My daughter loves wait. We started jogging at around 4months.

http://www.giant-bicycle.com/us/030.000.000/030.000.006.asp?bikesection=8843&lYear=2004