I had an overbury's pioneer and loved it

I did nearky kill me. The forks sheared off in the lower head set. The forks were inorrectly built with our an internal sleeve

But it went on with new forks until it was nicked in 1994

My mates Max OR frame (19" I think) is still int the shed. Now that was a distinctive frame set

I tried to buy my son a bike from them and failed! He was really upset. You order a bike thats in stock and that geneates expectations in a 10 year old

available in 7 days = non in the counry

usually available for immediate despatch = we'll promply phoned the supplier to see if they have any left

Wiggle's website actually has stock imfo' so we used them

John

Rember that if you buy an On-one frame you can post it too Merlin who will make it into a bike.

They quoted me about 480 for a full Deore build with Marzocchi mx pro lo

They e-mailed me back in hours with a quote

Tricky to answer but a few thoughts. I'm assuming you GF is lighter and sgorter than the average male and that you do rides that envolve up as well as down

 Everyting I've read sugests that MX Pro or Tora will buy huge performance gains but are still pretty heavy

 I remember watching my GF try and carry her 32lb (rigid) bike in the Pyrenese. It was a huge % of her body weight and all a bit silly. A lighter bike really made a difference.

So if the budget won't stretch and she doesn't need a long steerer then I'd look at used forks. I just paid 18 pounds for a pair of Manitou sx ti for my 11 year old son. Air would have been better to allow for weight adjustment but for under £20.......

Saw these on single track, which might help...

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/read.php?f=5&i=677815&t=677815

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/read.php?f=5&i=677738&t=677738

Looking back I think I worried too much when my GF walked bits. She just enjoyed mountain biking in different ways.

 Possibly the best moment was showing her a video of the Porcupine Rim trail (Utah)a few years ago. She couldn't believe that she done it.To us at the time it was just a day out. She walked a more than me (still on rigid bikes) but we did it

 http://www.petefagerlin.com/video/porcsingletrack.mpg

any way

 best of luck