SAN FRANCISCO, Ca., July 17 — Your baby’s lovely. You can’t keep your eyes off the little dickens. And you sure can’t trust it to keep away from your spirits cabinet and LP collection while you go for a quick run. You’ll have to suck it up for, oh, 18 years and wait until your pride-and-joy heads off to college to find your stride again, right? Wrong.
Mercantila Does Jogging Strollers!
How did an aeronautical Brit and a small-town journalist put new parents back on the roads? In the Beginning. Back in the early 18th century, an English chap named William Kent designed the first carriage so the third Duke of Devonshire’s children could be hooked up to a goat and wheeled around. Then came more carriages, and prams — most of which were actually deemed illegal for use on public walkways. After a few more incarnations, London aeronautical engineer Owen Mclaren took his plane savvy and designed the first lightweight aluminum stroller in 1965. The thing was light, safe, and load-bearing and quickly made the pram a thing of the past.
Fifteen years later, Yakima, Washington-based journalist and avid runner Phil Baechler stared longingly at the road, then at his infant son’s stroller. He concluded that the stroller’s wheels wouldn’t cut the running mustard and set about converting an old garage-sale stroller into a racing model. In 1983, Baechler and his wife, Mary, introduced the three-wheel stroller to the market under the Baby Jogger umbrella, and a bunch of companies have since flooded the market with their own versions of mobilized child care.
Innovations
As soon as jogging strollers caught on, every manufacturer started coming up with ways to rig them up, for the comfort and convenience of both pusher and passengers. The list of features is huge: off-roading tires and suspension systems; canopies; covers; cushions; reclined seating; folding frames; quick-releasing wheels; room for up to three kids; drink holders; storage compartments; safety harnesses and restraining bars; parking brakes; and flux capacitors. (So we told one lie.)
What’s In It For You?
Healthy lifestyle. You don’t have to become a couch potato just because you’re a new parent. (Duh.) And all that fresh air means your kids will sleep like logs.
Happy trails. You can run right down Broadway with any one of these, but many of them are designed for something a little more adventurous. Shock systems, suspension systems, and resilient tires mean you can get your trail workouts in without scrambling wee Einstein’s billion-dollar noggin in the process.
Double — or triple! — the fun. Why push one baby when you can push three? Take your twins; take your play group; take little Bobby off your neighbor’s hands for a bit and let the poor guy catch a nap.
Smooth, safe strolling. Your kids get safety harnesses, reclined and cushioned seating, leg room, etc. You get steering and pushing so effortless you’ll wonder when your toddlers went on the Hollywood Miracle Diet.
Meet your match:
Maybe you have one burden — uh, bundle of joy — maybe you have two. Maybe those fertility drugs were stronger than advertised and gave you a little triple blessing. Maybe you like roads; maybe you prefer trails. Maybe you’ve got a rag in one hand, Gerber splatter on your walls, and you just want us to shut up and show you our favorites:
| | Save & Share |  Free Shipping Forever!
No coupons. No expiration dates. Just fantastically FREE shipping on most of our favorite strollers. (Really.) | | |
| Clearance |  Deals on Wheels
The Schwinn Safari TT Single Baby stroller has reclined seating and a 5-point safety harness. Oh, and a $123.99 price tag (You've bought running shoes that cost more). | |
| Top Brand | Why Baby Jogger? You mean, besides being the company that invented jogging strollers, three-wheel strollers, and two-passenger strollers? Well, there’s the whole assembly process that locks parts in place at every single step to keep your little ones safe and happy over hundreds of miles. Their strollers are light, foldable, durable, smooth — basically, they’ve thought of everything, and they thought of most of it first.
Baby Jogger Store | |
| Penny For Your Thoughts? |  We sell a lot of stuff. Is there any particular line of products that's always mystified / fascinated you? (Go on, admit it. We're retail freaks. We're into this.)
Tell us why you're so curious -- give us a good enough story, and we'll give you the inside scoop. (Nobody wants pennies these days anyway.) Send your reply to readers@mercantila.com | | |
