Hi Solty, thanx so much for the detailed reply and advise. Wife is 52:kg, 1.5m in height, skinny, 46 years old, so coming off her old Giant Talon 1 27.5 hard tail which came in at under 13kg, might have been lighter thinking about it now, the Stratos al5 at just under 15kg does make a difference, she could immediately feel the weight difference. I also noticed the rims are very narrow, 21mm, so as you suggested, when upgrading opt for wider. So to answer your questions, she does not have broad shoulders, shaving off 20mm on the bars each side in my mind would make the bike feel less like a ship and a tad snappier. I could look for second hand carbon bars, 740mm wide with a sweep back. I have checked sag and rebound, it seems fine, i told her to lock out front and rear as much as possible, when on tar, gravel uphills, she agrees it makes the bike feel lighter as its more rigid, less loss of power. I have changed her grips to sbc blue, makes the bike pop more, not much else i can do looks wise.The handle bars seem alligned correctly, we did a bike fit at the lbs and looking at her ride, next to her, she looks good. Her seat i changed to the Giant Liv she had on her old bike, way better, moved it very far forward as she was not comfy with it centre or back. The bike to her feels heavy when riding and picking it up to answer your question. I actually feel sorry for her as on the same 20km ride we do twice a week i can see on her stats, heart rate etc... she is working much harder than me, and harder than when she had the lighter hard tail, BUT we had to change to soft tail as she has neck problems and since the soft tail no more pain on bumps, no more pain what so ever. The al5 is a comfy ride and for anyone older than 45 years old it seems soft tails are the best option. At 21.5k, which i paid with tubeless conversion, i could not find a brand new bike, in another brand, which is 1 x for that price. Yes, it is an entry level dual sus, but it is just a pitty about the weight as when you are older weight means more than when you are in your thirties and can easily lose 3kg in a few weeks or months. I think becuase this is a slacker bike, trail focused in a way, it might add to the feeling of feeling 'heavy' I sometimes wonder if XC bikes with steep head angles climb better, or actually feel easier to climb as we all hate long uphills and maybe this makes her feel that she is working harder on climbs. By the way, on straights and downhills, no issues there, much better than the old Giant 27.5. Gears work fine, i lube after every ride. In hind sight, maybe i should have looked at the older Sido range, maybe the Sido 2 or 1 demo or second hand would have been a better buy as they come in at under 13kg, it seems 2kg makes a huge difference, so for me to save 2kg on this bike will end up costing me big bucks. I have no idea at all which wheel sets to look for, what is compatible or not. Changing seat post and bars is easy, the front shock i suspect is also heavy, but if you look at changing that as well then i might as well look at another bike. For now i will see what i can find on classifieds and so on. Its not all doom and gloom, the design of this frame is something else, on silverbacks website they claim the stratos frame is 455g lighter than the older sido, so in theory, this can be a very very good bike if you change allot of components, but then you might as well opt for the AL3 or lighter models. Perhaps all entry level dual sus bikes in the range of 22kg weigh in at just under 15kg, you get what you pay for, at least she rides without pain and is super comfy over rough terrain.
