Thanks for the suggestions. I find that the front fork doesn't slow me down at all. If i brake really hard with the front brake, it does go down (compress) but that's all good. The lockout feature would probably be an "extra" that I can probably do without.

My problem with padded gloves is that they don't do as good a job of absorbing the bumps as a suspended fork and 2) I usually misplace them or leave them in my "other" jacket pocket.

I snooped around the bikes direct site and those 2 bikes above are right around 30lbs for the medium models. Thanks, anyway.

Having problems getting the frame weight for some of the above bikes.