She currently rides a Santa Cruz VPP bike and loves it. She has ridden a friends Pivot and I also own a DW link Ibis and she feels like the DW climbs better than VPP. Don't get us wrong the VPP is pretty awesome also. The biggest challenge is building or finding bikes to fit her properly. She is 5' even. You mention that you are building a 29. How tall are you? I've thought about building her one since she is such a climber but worry about the size thing.