my wife has a 100mm travel Spesh FSR but it’s getting a bit long in the tooth so I’ve been thinking of replacing it with something newer, with a bit more travel.

What should I be looking at? I know this is a fairly open question but I’m just getting ideas at this stage. We do the odd Alps trip but it basically needs to be a X-type bike, so 120mm-ish is fine, and nothing too slack/heavy.

Can be whole bike or frame only. She’s quite dinky too.

Juliana?

No too slack + alps don’t really mix that well. What about a scot contessa spark?

Trek Lush?

Specialized Safire?

Or the Orange 5 Diva

There’s lots of others out there, but those 3 all look to have very good standover clearance at least for the shorter lady, some others just assume they’ve still got 34″ legs but no torso seemingly.

the Alps thing might be misleading – we (well she) mainly does XC/singletrack trails and nothing really gnarr.

Have you looked at the Specialized frames being sold off at £399 at Bikescene

ta, I’ll have a butchers

My missus has a trek wsd fuel ex 5 and loves it

Forget about specilized they are rubbish. You pay premium for a nice paint and colour coordinated grips.

I got a 2008 Specialized Era FSR frame only for £499 from Bike Scene last year in size small and it fits perfectly (I’m 5’2″), its only 100mm so I guess not enough travel. I have a friend who is also vertically challenged who just got a Trek Lush in size small and she loves it.

Mrsmouse – what size person for a size Small Lush? Looking at the numbers I’m thinking the 15.5 (small?) for my 5’1″ and a bit Mrs.

Lush/Orange 5 Diva

BUT

There are no bikes around at the moment unless you find a bigger retailer who has bought up loads of stock