A friend has a tiny Giant Trance from about 2011. She is super small and rides an XS frame. It has about 120m rear travel and up front there is a Fox F series rl fork with about 120mm travel.

She is riding the bike very fast but is finding the limit of suspension travel. Has anyone put a longer travel fork on such a bike? I appreciate that it will slacken the head angle, but how much of a problem would that cause?

the new bikes with 650b and 29 wheels look crazy in such a tiny frame size, and some manufacturers arent even catering for her size.

Does anyone have any suggestions for getting some more suspension travel?

When Katie had one we ran it with a 130 mm Rockshox Revelation air fork. Totally transformed the bike and could be adjusted for her light weight. Can be picked up second hand for not a lot of money.

Wife has one. She also has a 130mm Revelation and an offset upper shock bushing. The latter made more difference than the travel.

Everyone I know with a trance or trance-x put longer forks on them without issue. I have 140 revs on my old tranceX and I know of a couple of people who used 140 fox forks on trances, this is a few years ago but my 2009 trance has I think the same as a 2011 in geometry/linkages?
You could always look for a s/h tranceX for a little more out back.

140 up font is the way to go on these.
I have 140 pikes on my 08 Trance X build and it’s a little flyer.
I’m not sure but i think it might be illegal to use anything under 140. 😀
Have a read through this lot.
link

Coil Pikes (the original ones!) on my 2009 Trance; love the adjustable travel – 125mm (same as rear) for climbs and flatter stuff then out to 140mm for getting sick air off kerbs and stuff.

I have a Trance X 29er which I run with 150mm Pikes. But they are dual position so I normally have them at the 130mm position and just used the 150mm for descents. Seems to work pretty well.

140’s run really well on those, well worth doing if she’s finding its limits (she must be riding the hell out of it!!)