Been a while since I did one of these.
I've had loads of crutches down the years, several of which have been mentioned on here before now. Bizarrely this blog gets a lot of hits, still, from my misspelling of cannes anglaises, way back in 2011. Since then I've had a couple of pairs of folding Vilgo crutches but the elastic in them worked loose over time. I then found a pair of OPO ones which were not bad, indeed I still use them around the house, but it seems that, pre-wheelchair, a year was about as long as any crutches lasted without worrisome squeaks and creaks. And when I came to replace them, there didn't seem to be a UK distributor for the OPOs. So I took the plunge, about three years ago, and bought a pair Ossenbergs.
Now, Ossenbergs have a reputation for being amongst the best crutches there are. Their folding ones are carbon fibre. But they're not cheap, so until then I'd tried various other ones. I kind of wish I hadn't bothered.
I love them. They're not as light as I thought, similar in weight to the Vilgos and slightly heavier than the OPOs, because the anatomically moulded grip and sturdier forearm section offsets the gain from the lighter tubes. They tolerated 20 hours folded on a flight from Dubai to Auckland last year and sprung back into life when put back together. By contrast, I had a Vilgo become next to useless after being folded for a couple of hours on a flight to Rome. The anatomic grips took a while to get used to and inevitably if I grab for just one, I end up with the wrong one. But they're definitely easier on the hands and wrists than even the OPOs (which I supplemented with stick on neoprene grips).
Looking at the prices today, it seems Vilgos have gone up in price and Ossenbergs have come down - so they're now pretty much the same price. They may be boring black, at least if you want folding, but the Ossenbergs win hands down in my book. Absolutely recommend them. Oh and the non-folding ones come in cool colours.
Not a paid review.
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