She has an old gt mountain bike that weighs a ton and is after something new.
Probably looking at a flat bar urban/cyclo bike as it will mostly be used on cycle paths/bridalways.
Prob in the £6-800 price mark.
Any ideas.

EBC have some really goood options around that price range. My OH has a County Explorer which has been great – if a bit heavy. This looks really nice:
http://www.edinburghbicycle.com/products/revolution-shadow-14?bct=browse%2fbicycles

I bought my wife the Isla Beinn 29. Pretty versatile bike and with your budget you could get disks and maybe a couple of sets of wheels with different tyres. It’s got clearance for upto 2″ tyres.

I’m no help – we’re off to look at an Alpine 160 for my wife this morning, but I i may have the odd comment.

How tall is she? Over 5’6″ and she will probably find a “men’s” bike with a ladies saddle and a stem swap pretty reasonable. If you’re anywhere near Sheffield pop into OnOne’s showroom – they have some deals at the moment.

26″ wheels make sense for shorter people, 29 for larger – but that’s a generalisation. Specific bikes and people differ.

What’s she really using it for? Cycle paths and bridleways differ considerably – some are MTB territory, some you could do on a road bike. For the cycle path up the river in York I use a £50 1993 Kona – light, quick, responsive.

Apart from that last year’s model is always a good start around this price point.

Hope that was some help.

Edit: those Beinn 29s look nice

She’s only about 5’2″ so a 29er might be a bit big.
It won’t be mountain bike territory. Gravel bridalways would be the extreme but mostly pathways.

Cube do a range of hybrids that would be perfect. They have trekking forks, 38c tyres and do a ladies version.

Cheers I’ll take a look.

The Islabikes 29er goes down to 5’1″ ish. They are masters of large wheels in small frames on their kids bikes so I’d guess they know how to do it and the 29ers review well.

Check out Evans’ Pinnacle range. Probably a nice option there.