Anyone had experience of running a Soul on shorter travel forks(say 80mm).

I built the bike last year with Uturn 100-130 Revs and full XT group but just can’t get to love it. I think the bike is too much full mountain for the type of riding I do now a days.

Should I sell it and go for another make with geometry set up for 80mm or can I make the Soul work with 80mm Sids.

Just really need a light, steel, trail bike for dirt track and local woods type riding.

Days of hurtling down mountains have gone, I love the idea of the Soul but maybe its overkill for what I need.

Frighteningly having a Roberts DOGSBOLX built at 1k is starting to make sense, am I going mad!!

Any opinions?

no experience with sids but cotic’s can run fine with rigid forks (the simple was first pictured with carbon rigid forks) which would have an axle to crown height of 440mm

i’m guessing a sagged SID would run around 430mm, but at full travel may feel too low – unless you don’t mind running them a little harder

i’ve always run my soul with longer forks (110mm ronin’s, 120mm marzocchics, 120mm minutes, and now 120mm rebas), and at full travel (i.e. assuming you never get the last 20mm out of them like me) they would drop to around 400mm (AC height) – a sid would be a good 30mm lower

looks that you are building a HT around your Sid’s to me – how about

try them first with the sids first (costs nothing), or
try a rigid fork (cheaper than a new suspension fork), or
buy a 100mm fork (cheaper than a new frame)?

My Soul is very nimble with 100mm forks – don’t see why you would need to go shorter. Have you tried removing a spacer to lower your bars and trying it with the u-turn wound down to 100mm? It took me a while to get my set-up right but it rides great now – try playing around with the seat position, stem length and other variables until you get comfortable. Much cheaper than shelling out for new forks/frame.

I originally ran my 2010 frame with 100mm Rebas and it was excellent.

Wouldn’t fancy going any lower than that though.

Why not go for 100mm?

Rather than going with stubby forks, which I’d agree will take the Soul way out of its sweet spot, I’d suggest you try a rigid fork- my Soul was fantastic with my Exotics in it, one of the best £70s I’ve spent on bike stuff.