"I really feel like this is the emperor's new clothes of buggies. urban envirnoment? have you ever tried to take this thing on a bus? or carrying it to get on a tube? or folded it for the boot of you car? or walked it along an uneven pavement? it also has no decent subshade and very little storage space! i consider it impossible to lead an urban life without doing these things on a regular basis, and the stokke isn't very good at any of them. the bugaboo bee is a great urban buggy, as is the maclaren (xt and quest) and the BJCM."
Um, yes. DS is 26 months and I've had it since a week before he was born. It's going strong. I had cripplingly bad SPD as long as I was BF and it was a complete lifesaver for me, as it was easier to walk pushing it than it was without. We use buses all the time without any issue, and we have 8 stone steps up to the front door which he has been bumped up every single day without any issue. I've dismantled it regularly to fit into a car, which is a faff, but no more than the Cameleon, and Cambridge/Cheltenham don't have the most even pavements on earth so I certainly don't agree that it's hard to push on those (unlike the Mclaren, which IMO is utter hell). As to no decent storage space - huh? The bag is huge and the nappy bag straps on as well to the stem and takes a hell of a lot - snacks etc as well as a change of clothes. It fits loads more than the Maclaren, which we got for a holiday as we didn't want to risk trashing the Xplory. Now that is an awful biggy - stupid little wheels kept getting jammed in cobbles, no storage to speak of because anything stowed under stuck into DS's bum, handles so low down it hurt my back, and DS (who is happy as a clam in the Xplory) hated it as he was front facing and low down, so he couldn't see anything or talk to us.
Agree the Xplory is shite on the tube, though, it's the major downside. It can handle a few stairs no problem, but the tube tends to be a lot more than a few! The Bee is what we'd have chosen for London, as you can carry it over one shoulder.