owners of Icandy Pears...tell me of their loveliness

[TheSugarPlumFairy]

DD is 15 months and we have just discovered that we are expecting another in March 2012 . DD will be 23 months old. She is a good walker but i dont think i would be comfortable just having a buggy board for her. There are times where i am just going to need to strap her in.

We have a P&T sport so could potentially just buy a second seat for it and be ready to roll but i have seen a couple of the Icandy pears about town and i think i have fallen a little bit in lust with them.

I like my Sport. I like it alot but i dislike the idea of the newborn being "shelved" underneath while DD sits basically on top of her. From what i understand i cant attached the maxi cosi car seat on the top either and have DD in the second seat without risking tipping. I also think that DD will get kicked in the back alot when walking as H cant even push our P&T smart without accidentailly kicking the brake on all the time (he is 6"2).

So i have been eyeing up the Pears. The seats seem nice and wide and comfy and they look easy to push. Are they easy to fold down? Is the handle height adjustable? It is annoying that you cant get prices for them online so if anyone could give me an idea of price that would be handy.

Also any ideas on how i can convince H that a change of pram might really be necessary and it is not just me being a Pram Hun.

Our local independant shop slates them, apparently they have finally resolved their manufacturing problems only to move to a new cheaper factory.
If you are going to but one buy it from John Lewis on your credit card so you can get a refund if necessary.

Ok, absolutely honestly, I have a Pear, Peach, BJCS, Contours and several other tandems here at present (or have had recently), so hope I can give a fair review. I have been test driving the Pear this week. I have heard lots of reports of Pears being heavy. Indeed last year I didn't buy the Pear because it felt tank like empty with no children in. It still felt the same this time when empty. However I was really pleasantly surprised when pushing the Pear with two heavy -ish children in (a 12 month old and heading for three year old) because it drove brilliantly on even cambered pavements and uphill. In fact on the most tricky uphill part of my circuit where I can usually tell if a pushchair is pulling to one side I literally had my thumb and finger on the handle. So beautiful on the flat and around wide corners. But the minute I tried to do tight cornering eg in a shop if the wheels weren't pointing forwards (which they often aren't if you drive in and stop to look or so something) or you try to reverse back to shunt out forwards, then the Pear completely sticks. It's even worse if you stop on grass (we went to a school fair) and the wheels stopped sideways and with only the baby in, they were bending alarmingly when I tried to move again. It happened many times on just this one outing and again since. I have since heard this happens to other people's wheels too. I have to say I need to lock the wheels because it is that bad - and it really is bad! As for the seats. My eldest is now too tall for the seat unit hood - not by much though. She dangles her legs rather than uses the footrest (like she does on most of our pushchairs). She has loads of room width ways in the seats. The basket is practically inaccessible (you can post the odd flat thing in through the edges). I often hear people talk about the seating options but both children have to face the same way. If you have them parent facing then you can't see the smaller seat at all without running around. My daughter wasn't impressed at having to face me. She prefers facing out and TBH for the first year my baby has fallen asleep within minutes of leaving the house, so I would rather the eldest were happy. If it's seating positions that you want then to be honest the Baby Jogger City Select or Contours (no carrycot though) are much better options. However the BJCS is harder to push as the children get heavier. Have you seen the new Mountain Buggy Duet? It's a side by side with full sized seats but the same width as a tandem/single? The other option given your due date is the new Peach. Whilst the seat and carrycot face forwards, the car seat goes on backwards and I love seeing DS like this. The prices for the Pear are on the iCandy website but you are talking just under £750 new with carrycot and car seat adaptor. Honestly, I am a huge iCandy fan but unless someone could tell me the front wheels had bern improved, I wouldn't buy one. If they have, the definitely it's worth a look.