When I saw this in the New Products pen at JPMA, it freaked me out. Why would you lash yourself to a stroller with that thing, I thought. And thus, I unwittingly outed myself to the world as a non-jogging slug.
The Stroll-Smart won an innovation award this year, and I'm not surprised. It was one of the standout new products at the show. Basically, it's a double-recoiling, shock-absorbing, breakaway adaptor that allows you to jog with a stroller, hands-free. This seems really important to a lot of runners; apparently, steering and jogging at the same time kind of screws up your stride, and it can get awkward or fatiguing. The Stroll-Smart allows you to throw a little arm motion back into your running.
If you fall or trip, the adapter breaks away, and you just pop it back on. The wrist strap'll keep your rig from shooting off down the road without you. One other beauty innovation were the nested, locking spacers that help the Stroll-Smart fit on a wide variety of stroller models. So far, in the nearly ten years this thing's been under development, there's only been one jogging stroller that won't fit it. Naturally, I forget which one it is. So if you have some esoteric or grey market stroller, drop them a line first.
There's a 3min demo video on their site, which explains how it works; why people jog, much less jog in the freakin' desert, remains a mystery.
The Stroll-Smart is sold online for $49.95, and I'm betting it'll be in a bunch of stores pretty soon. [stroll-smart.com]
Not a big fan of jogging strollers....although I must confess the last thing I jogged was my memory.
Have you ever seen a happy baby in a jogging stroller? They always look uncomfortable and insecure to me...perhaps it is the rough pavement rushing by them, inches from their little bodies.