What strollers are best for cobblestone streets?

As a mom liv­ing in Ger­many, I have a lot of expe­ri­ence with rough, cob­ble­stone streets. I know sev­eral expect­ing moms who have asked what to look for in a stroller that you’ll be using on bumpy streets, and here’s some points:

• Pneu­matic tires — at least two of the tires should have rub­ber­ized tires with an air-filled inner tube. These help cush­ion the bumps. My Quinny had a flat (a prob­lem that comes with pneu­matic tires, unfor­tu­nately), so I was out with my Maclaren with it’s solid plas­tic tires for a day, and by after­noon, my back was a mess. The bumpi­ness of the road gets trans­ferred right up your arms into your back.
• Front tires that swivel - It doesn’t mat­ter if you go for a three wheel or four wheel stroller, the front tire or tires should swivel. You’ll also want to be able to lock the tires in place for when you’re in shops or some­place with smooth floors, as the swivel­ing can be a nui­sance on those types of surfaces.
• A sturdy stroller — While you don’t have to go out and buy the most expen­sive stroller out there, it is usu­ally a good idea, when your stroller is going to be under a lot of stress, to not buy the least expen­sive stroller you can find. Invest in a good, sturdy, qual­ity stroller, espe­cially if you’re hop­ing to use it with future chil­dren or want to sell it after you’re done with it. Cob­ble­stones are hard on a stroller and can cause a cheap stroller to quickly fall apart.
• A light­weight stroller — With cob­ble­stones usu­ally comes other obsta­cles. Many places won’t have ele­va­tors and you’ll have to face stairs, steep slopes, and other dif­fi­cult to maneu­ver sit­u­a­tions. A stroller that’s lighter will help immensely.

Unfor­tu­nately for your pock­et­book, putting all these things together usu­ally bumps the strollers price tag up quite a bit. When we were stroller hunt­ing, we didn’t find any­thing that met these cri­te­ria for under 300 Euro, and ended up choos­ing a Quinny Buzz.  Before you buy, you (and any­one else who’ll be using the stroller on a reg­u­lar basis) should go to a store and test drive the mod­els you are con­sid­er­ing.  Fold up the stroller, make sure it will fit in your trunk.  Think about the ter­rain you’ll be tra­vers­ing.  Think about whether that white or cream canopy really is such a good choice!  To help you get started, here is a par­tial list of strollers that should work well on cobblestone:

• Quinny Buzz — It has a wide wheel base that doesn’t allow it to fit through nar­row door­ways, but it not only does well on cob­ble­stone, it has no prob­lem tak­ing on the gravel road and even fields and hik­ing paths around our house. It’s a pop­u­lar choice of par­ents in our near­est city, Regens­burg. The Quinny Speedi is more heavy duty option, with three pneu­matic tires.  I saw a lot more Speedis than Buzzes in Munich.
• Buga­boo Cameleon — This stroller is very pop­u­lar in the larger Ger­man cities like Munich, Berlin and Frank­furt.  It’s very maneu­ver­able and has a smooth ride.
• Mutsy 4rider — Another option from this com­pany is the Mutsy 3rider.
• Phil and Ted’s strollers — Any of the Phil and Ted’s strollers fit the above cri­te­ria.  The neat thing about these strollers is that a sib­ling chair can be added on to the back with­out dou­bling the length of the stroller.  If we have another child, I’d really like to get one of these — wish I’d known about them before we had Oliver.  Phil and Ted’s also has a twin side-by-side stroller.
• Chicco S3 — These strollers are every­where in Italy, all those Ital­ians moms can’t be wrong!
• Hauck Road­ster SL — A heavy duty jog­ger that’s pretty com­mon in Germany.
• Teu­to­nia strollers — Any of the fully cus­tomiz­able Teu­to­nia strollers would be a good choice.  They’re also quite pop­u­lar in Ger­many and have a twin side-by-side option.
• Stokke Xplory - Your child sits higher off the ground in this unique stroller.  I’d heard of sta­bil­ity prob­lems when this first came out, but I think they’ve been dealt with, since I haven’t heard any­thing recently.  You don’t see a lot of these around, I’ve only seen one maybe 5–6 times.  If you go with this stroller, you’d cer­tainly turn heads!
• Orbit Infant Sys­tem — This is the new cool stroller for Hol­ly­wood par­ents.  The seat can rotate 360 degrees, so your child can face for­ward, back­ward, or even to the side.  At $900, it’s got a hefty price tag, but you’ll def­i­nitely be the coolest mama on the block.

I know I’ve missed a lot of great strollers.  What stroller do you have?  Is it a good choice for a cob­ble­stone fre­quenter?  Do you have any other tips for choos­ing a stroller?

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• The Best European Car Seats (6)
• Rice's Cups Full of Hope (4)
• Review: Stokke Tripp Trapp (2)
• Pregnant in Germany (3)
• Phil & Teds Sport pushchair review (3)

Tagged as: Bugaboo, Buzz, Cameleon, chicco, cobblestones, Germany, hauck, Maclaren, Mutsy, Orbit, Phil and Teds, Quinny, Stokke, Strollers, Teutonia, travel systems, twins, xplory