Originally Posted by
daihard
Thanks for the advice, everyone.
My wife is 5' 2" and weighs about 115 lbs. That may explain the effort she needs to make in order to climb up the hill on the Marlin. It's an XS frame but may still be quite heavy for her.
We will check out the Schwalbe tyres. She rode a short trail today (without me!) and said she kinda liked it as is, so getting smoother tyres would make it even better for her.
[edit: I now see others made the same suggestion. It's the first thing that came to my mind when reading the original post, and I couldn't restrain myself any longer than to reply to the quote above. 8-) ]
Smooth tires, about 1.5" max width, maybe even 1.25 (which is what I used to ride on my MTB-turned-commuter.
But, might I kindly suggest that if you want your wife to enjoy bike riding and not just tolerate it, get her a nice, much lighter, suspension-less hybrid or whatever type of bike she is more comfortable with.
The tire solution you're looking at will be a very minor improvement because of what others have pointed out - it's a very heavy moutnain bike with features that are just worthless, in fact counterproductive, on the road.