Any opinions on the older style Bugaboo Bee?

[pushchairbore]

We have a Britax B Smart for our 5 month old but it's just a bit too big for the places I need to be able to take it into- the rear wheelbase seems very wide. Nice sturdy pushchair though and love that ds faces me. Were it not for still wanting to rearface then I'd dig out dd's old Maclaren and start using that. But I've seen a few older style Bees going fairly cheaply and wondered if it might be a good compromise til ds doesn't want to see my ugly mug anymore
Are they as low down as they look? And will it feel flimsy in comparison to the old Britax workhorse?

I have one. They are skinny and low. They are easy to carry and fold up quite small i can get loads in the basket. The only downside compared to the New version is that the seat doesn't go fully upright, its always slightly reclined but that's not a major problem.

There was a problem on the brakes with the old version pre 2009 so make sure you get one with the adapters if its that old.

Is there an easy way to tell how old it is? Have you found that it being so low down is a problem? It seems exactly what we need size wise I just don't know if I'm trading one set of problems for another. The Britax seems very comfy nd can recline at any angle, if only it weren't so big and wide it would be fine. I've also seen the icandy Cherry but that seems to be a bit more expensive secondhand. I'm not after it to last me a great while, I doubt even a year as I know that by 18 months both my older ones were in a Maclaren all the time, I'm just not ready to face him away!

Note - Older cherrys (cherries??) also have issues - the front wheels fell off mine!

FELL OFF?!!
Seriously? Just fell off? Bloody hell

I don't know how you would date it. If you buy off ebay you could ask.

The lowness isn't a problem at all and the handle is height adjustable. It might be small but its pretty robust. Mine is on dc2 now and going strong.

Yes, just fell off. Both the front ones on different occasions. The second one whilst crossing the road. I was not amused! I fixed em back on and after that they stayed on. iCandy fixed the issue at some point, I'm not sure precisely when, it was some sort of design flaw. Mine was 2007 though so pretty old.

Well I picked up a Bee today and so far I couldn't be happier with it. It's remarkably sturdy for somehting so small. I've used it with our car seat attatched and ds looked very happy. Brakes and wheels all seem fine. It is an absolute arse to change the direction of the seat though, very bad design in that respect. But now it's parent facing and that way it'll stay. I don't really want to fork out for a Bugaboo footmuff but the bee is so narrow that our Kaiser and even just our sheepskin liner seems bunched up at the back of the seat unit. Any suggestions?

Tap up your pils for the muff ? That's what we did! Or my friend got a generic fleecy one from mothercare and it was fine.

Re the seat, i kept dd facing me til about 9 months then swapped it round and left it that way. The only downside of front facing is that you can't see through the hood.