Baby Jogger City Mini GT (Crimson) Review by JBH

Firstly, I shall confess I am a bit of a pramaholic (understatement)!
I have a brood of children and I have previously owned literally hundreds of pushchairs, buggies and prams (not all at once, and yes really!).

We are now nearing the end of our pushchair days, as our youngest child is now 4 years old. Some may say he’s too old for a pushchair at this age but as a family we have a relaxed attitude to pushchair use. Our child is never forced into a pushchair unwillingly. He gets plenty of exercise and activity, and we only use the pushchair to prevent over tiredness (signalled by whining and a request to have a ride!) or on boring but necessary shopping trips where I allow him to sit in the pushchair with a small game, toy or book and while he amuses himself, I go about my business hassle free and with the buggy basket to help carry the goods! I also want to add, as a non driver we do find we walk a lot more than friends who do drive (and tend to drive everywhere even for short trips) and their children of similar ages seem to have mostly given up their pushchairs as they ride in the car a lot more often than they walk.

At the moment our requirements from a pushchair is that it is lightweight, compact folded, easy to store when not in use, easy to push even with a 14kg child in the seat, layback is still useful when the need for a nap arises (especially on holiday or if the child is unwell)! The Baby Jogger City Mini GT is excellent for all the above attributes.

A good size and easily accessible basket on the pushchair is needed because with older school age siblings we find we use this facility a lot for school bags etc.
I am happy to report that the Baby Jogger City Mini GT basket can hold a clarinet and a half size violin simultaneously if needed and still leave a little room for books and water bottles! This is very impressive considering how neat the basket looks!

There is another basket/pocket at the rear of the seat, this is fabulous for keeping a hat, gloves or blanket to hand (and little snacks just incase).

Having previously had a Baby Jogger City Mini (or three!) before I would like to praise the “upgraded” wheels on the GT version. They seem to run extremely smoothly and improve the pushability and manoeuvrability of this stroller considerably. It may be the larger wheel diameter, or the real tyres (with forever air no puncture filling) or perhaps better ball-bearings, but either way they are worth the extra price tag because the pushchair is able to tackle most terrains with ease and it’s a dream to push and manoeuvre whether you are walking in the woods or braving densely crowded areas in the city. You can rely on this pushchair to get you through with ease.

When choosing this (final) pushchair to see us through to the end of our stroller days we looked at lots of compact pushchairs on the market.
Some were unsuitable because their seat size was too small or their hoods were too low for a child who was still within the weight limit or average height of a 3-4 year old.
Some strollers have wheels without ball bearings in them, meaning when you put a child near to the weight limit of the stroller in and try to push it, the wheels are quite stiff to rotate and even squeak rather annoyingly.
Some of the cheaper lightweight umbrella strollers can compare to similar construction of flimsy dolls buggies and would not be durable for everyday use with a child near the weight limit!

The Baby Jogger City Mini GT is well constructed in a durable manner, the seat is generous, as is the canopy (though there is a small concern with the canopy appearing to sit low on the frame when fully retracted, once popped forward a notch, by one canopy section, this is easily resolved).
The harness is generous in size (we had to give up on the bugaboo bee+ because its harness was simply too short to fit our average 3y old wearing a padded winter coat).
The adjustable handle height on the Baby Jogger City Mini GT Is also a very useful feature and makes for comfortable pushing at all times. It also means you can make the pushchair very compact indeed if you wish to pack it for travelling.
The seat of the Baby Jogger City Mini GT is very nicely padded and it contains within it a metal support frame and plastic boards for the seat and backrest, therefore the base of the seat never sags and access to the basket beneath is never compromised! The seat is supportive and generous in shape and size so provides excellent posture and ergonomics for babies and children alike. For easy laundering the seat of this stroller can simply be poppered off the frame, the boards slipped out and it goes in the washing machine on a quick wash, popper the seat back onto the stroller to dry preferably leaving it close to a radiator (in winter) or in the sunshine in summer to dry in a few hours (or overnight). This is excellent for accidental spills or potty training incidents. It comes up like new! Not many strollers are as easy to care for as this!

If you were looking for a stroller that would see a baby from birth up until 4 years, and you did not want to have to buy several strollers for different purposes, I would say this is possibly the best all round stroller available. It’s extremely good value for money, considering the excellent quality of construction, the excellent space saving design, the brilliant one handed fold, it will fit in all car boots easily, it can be used on public transport, it is suitable from birth, a dream to push and will still be a dream to push even if you need to use it once your child is 4! It is lightweight yet robust and extremely practical to use. It is also rather cool to look at too.

I recommend this pushchair very highly and think it would suit almost everyone’s pushchair needs (unless you require an extreme off road model or something suitable to run with in which case might I recommend a Baby Jogger Summit!