Mountain Buggy Cosmopolitan Review

Quick Summary: Overall the Mountain Buggy Cosmopolitan is a great looking, beautifully designed product. The Chassis on its own is a real thing of beauty. The basket is massive, the seat is really clever and the controls have a real well engineered feel about them. Most of all, if you love the Mountain Buggy brand, but don't want to do the full off-road thing, the Cosmopolitan is definitely for you!

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Pushchair review

Mountain Buggy are well known for their off-road pushchairs. Indeed I myself have written about catching the off-road pushchair bug when I first got my hands on the Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle. Well it now seems that Mountain Buggy want to muscle in on the urban market with the release of the Cosmopolitan. Will it be smooth as silk or a bumpy ride? Read our Mountain Buggy Cosmopolitan review to find out.

Colours; Stone, Chilli, Turquoise

Mountain Buggy Cosmopolitan Chassis

The chassis of the Mountain Buggy Cosmopolitan is a real departure from the usual tubular aluminium frames we have come to expect from the New Zealand company. The Cosmopolitan is made from sleek triangulated high grade aluminium, and I can report, it is absolutely gorgeous!

The silver finish is not subject to any welding and there are no visible rivits or screws. There is a real sense of quality to the parts and in the construction.

It's slightly disappointing then that the whole frame feels a bit ‘loose', you know just a little rattly. Don't get me wrong, it not a big problem, it's just there is a tiny bit of play in everything from the axles to the handle which adds up to give that loose feel.

One of the most striking features to my eye are the Wheels. The fronts are EVA and measure 18cm in diameter and the rears are aerotech (EVA/rubber blend) and measure 28cm. They have a very sexy slender looking design and are very lightweight. You might need a toothbrush to clean in between the spokes, but clean them you will just to keep them as striking as when they were new.  Oh and I love the button at the front to lock the front wheels. Push down ‘click' your wheels are locked, push again and they are free!

Suspension is present on both the front and rear axles and is very effective. There are exposed coil springs at the front (get the tooth brush out for cleaning again!) and an internal hub mounted system at the rear.

The basket on the Cosmopolitan is simply massive! Measuring a huge 46 x 43 x 18cm, you can clearly see a product that has been designed almost from the basket up. You will easily be able to fit two bags of shopping in there, plus nappies etc etc!! Mountain Buggy have added two metal bars in underneath the basket. This is excellent if you have heavy bags of shopping as it stops the basket from splitting. All in all the basket is a great feature.

Mountain Buggy have left you in no doubt where the brake is. The bright red brake pedal sits on the right hand axle and is a very flip flop friendly design, in fact you could use it barefoot! Forward for off, back for on. If only the Urban Jungle brake was this good!!  
 

The only thing you may feel is missing from the Cosmopolitan's Chassis is an adjustable handlebar. For some people, this may prove a bit of an issue as an effective adjustable handle is an ideal tool when manoeuvring around town, however, we have all had a go here and with varying heights all agree that the height Mountain Buggy have chosen is pretty much perfect for us. (Our heights range from 5 foot to 5 foot 10 inches). If you are however exceptionally tall or very short, it will be worth a test to see if the fixed height is right for you. Mountain Buggy have done this specifically to ensure that the 'kerb pop' remains excellent with the pushchair filled with any level of suitable weight. I have to say it does feel pretty slick. 

Mountain Buggy Cosmopolitan Seat

The main seat is forward or rear facing and converts into a full carrycot and back to the seat again. To convert the seat into a carrycot you just release a couple of buckles and the seat drops down and you have the carrycot. Reconnect them again and you have a seat again. It's very simple and a lovely execution of this feature. We have of course seen the combined seat/carrycot design before from the likes of Mima but this is by far the slickest method I have seen.

Currently there is no hard carrycot available. With removal of the seat when in carrycot mode being a 3 handed job, you will probably be forced to lift and transfer your sleeping baby from time to time – not ideal for light sleepers!

While I am on the subject of seat removal, I am a little surprised at the seat removal method that Mountain Buggy have employed. You have to hold the underside of the outer seat frame and twist two rotating levers with your thumbs and then lift the seat off. If you have cold hands or weak thumbs, the size of the lever and the effort required might prove something of a frustration. There are many different designs of seat removal mechanism and this is not the best.

The seat itself measures 33cm at its widest point and has a back height of 46cm. There is ample space in there.

When in seat mode, the Cosmopolitan seat is an excellent design and full of the great features we love.

Firstly, the recline is a one handed affair. There is a small lever at the top of the seat on the back, that when lifted allows you to move the seat smoothly to one of the 3 recline positions.

Covered in the same fabric as the seat exterior, the bumper-bar is gate opening. Push a little button on the lower side of the bumper-bar stay and pull it away. It's simple and the button is light to push.

When it comes to strapping your little one in, Mountain Buggy have made certain that they WILL NOT escape. The 5 point harness in the Cosmopolitan features a two button release. There is a button on the side of the catch to release the buckle and a red one on top that must also be pressed in before the buckle slides out. If you have a little Houdini, this will put a stop to their tricks. In addition, there are 3 heights for the shoulder straps and a very nice design of catch controlling the length of each side of the entire harness.

At the lower end, the 5 way adjustable footrest has a nice wipe clean sturdy material where the feet will rest.

Finally to the Mountain Buggy Cosmopolitan's hood . The hood itself is not the biggest, but does provide enough shade in pushchair mode, however, convert the seat into a carrycot and you will see that it comes up short – literally. With the seat laid all the way back, the hood stops about 10 degrees short of vertical. It looks very nice, dissecting the angles of the bumper-bar and the handle, but I think it would be much better if it came over a little further, up to, or better still past the vertical point.

It does have some nice built in features, like a peekaboo window (without a magnetic closure mind) and an extra ventilated segment accessed by undoing a zip.

There is one thing that is nagging me about the seat. It really is ‘loose' when pushing the Cosmopolitan around and over bumps, the seat rocks back and forth on its mounts quite a bit. I am sure if you speak to their technical department, they will say it's supposed to do that, but experience tells me this may get worse as times goes on although I am sure it has been rigorously tested during the design process.

The final point to mention on the hood is the way it's attached to the pushchair. Mountain Buggy have opted to use 4 press studs and a fabric wind stop strip at the base. This does a good job of stopping the back of the hood from letting the wind through, but is not quite so effective down the side. Ideally  I would have liked to see a zip, but this is not a big issue, just my preference.

Mountain Buggy Cosmopolitan fold

Folding the Cosmopolitan is very easy indeed, it can even be folded with the seat on in world facing mode! There is no knack, it just folds!!

With the seat in place and in the fully upright position, push in the two little grey buttons on either side of the handlebar. Now, grab the handle at the centre and pull in the button that sits within your grasp. Push the handle forward and into the frame and the handle will lower, collapsing the frame. The auto-lock engages and your pushchair is folded!

To open release the auto lock and lift the handle, placing and pushing your foot on the pad positioned on the back of the basket as you do so. The Cosmopolitan chassis will snap into place with a resounding ‘click'.  Done!

The Cosmopolitan is not the smallest pushchair when folded, it measures 95 x 64 x 35cm. It does however stand on its nose making putting it away easier.  There is no benefit in size when removing the seat except in height. The length and the width stay the same.

Mountain Buggy Cosmopolitan conclusion

If our Mountain Buggy Cosmopolitan review tells us one thing, it is that it's undoubtedly a lovely product. The finish, material quality and style are right up there with the best. The Cosmopolitan would be a great choice in the upmarket single pushchair class.

Clever design touches and that versatile seat make for a product that will take you from 0 to 20 kg without the need to change.

It's a collection of little things that may impact on your ownership experience, the slightly ‘loose' feel to the chassis, the seat play, the non adjustable handlebar and the large fold. On their own, they are very small issues, but together they could combine to dull things a little.

There are though, elements I really love, the locking method for the front wheels, the rear wheel design, the simplicity of the fold, the basket, the handling, the way it looks and most of all, the way everything just works without  requiring a ‘knack'.

Overall the Mountain Buggy Cosmopolitan is a great looking, beautifully designed product. The Chassis on its own is a real thing of beauty. The basket is massive, the seat is really clever and the controls have a real well engineered feel about them. Most of all, if you love the Mountain Buggy brand, but don't want to do the full off-road thing, the Cosmopolitan is definitely for you!