Originally Posted by
pakossa
"A ton of weight on my hands" sounds like the main problem is the seat is too far forward (which puts your center of gravity too far forward, hence the extra weight on the hands). I'd try adjusting that first. (It may be only 5 - 10 mm.)
I agree about the too-foward saddle. Too much pressure from inadequate reach so that the bars are jabbing into your hands and cutting off circulation might be mistaken for "too much weight on my hands" too. If this is the case your hands will beome numb on long descents.
Another reason why this new bike feels so big is because it's essentially a 29er with slighly skinny 38mm tires. My 29er feels like giant's bicycle - it looks and is huge - and even with lightweight racing tires it makes me feel small and weak. I don't know what the tires weigh on that Trek but if it's ridden primarily on pavement they could be replaced with fattish 300 gram tires in the 28-32mm wide range.
After replacing some 500 gram tires with skinner ones half that weight I could do a ride that used to fatigue me pretty badly once three times in repetition.