I’m in ‘need’ of a second bike and I’m fancying the green Cotic Soul frame to build up with my various bits including 150mm floats.
General XC duties as well as the odd jump or two on the home run.
Any Soul owners jump? If so any issues?
Any issues with 150mm forks?
Do I need to get them lowered?

Jump a bit on mine. Don’t always land as well as I should. Been fine. If you mean dirt jumps as opposed to the odd wee kicker or drop from a few feet, it might not be the bike for you, but for general trail riding it’s perfect.

150 revs dropped to 140 on mine.

I’ve got 140s on mine and have done the odd in-trail drop and jump.
don’t like it though – partly because I was clipped in and can’t jump clipped in, because my seatpost was too high, because I didn’t want to break it and because can’t jump a hardtail…

How jumpy do you mean? I’m fine with tabletops up to a reasonable size, drops likewise up to the 4′-6′ range at the moment, have a mental issue with gaps that I’m working on. The bike certainly isn’t the limiting factor! 150mm is too long but drop them to 130 or 140 and they’ll be great.

I tend to swing a leg over to be honest…

I likes a jump every now and again, and wouldn’t be put off by the fact I’m on the Soul at all. If I had the technique for it, I’d take it down the jump track as well, but I’m not good enough. 130mm Revs on mine and I’ve never bottomed out yet. You’ll have fun.

I tend to swing a leg over to be honest…

😆

Easy answers:

1) 150mm forks NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!
2) The odd jump and drop not a problem at all on the Soul.

I find mine pretty light and chuckable so its ended up jumping (down normal trail stuff) far more than I do on my Nicolai full sus, though it currently has cross-max wheels on at the moment so I am more worried about the wheels than the frame. Hope + Stans going on it this week which I will feel happier about landing. I dont know how to ‘jump’ but it feels fine for normal trail stuff.

And def NO to 150 mm forks! I find 120 mm a little bit wander’ry on the climbs…def wouldn’t want any more (though know people run 140’s – not for me!)

cy – Member
Easy answers:

1) 150mm forks NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!

Always wanted to ask you on this – somewhere on the Cotic site, it mentions that it’s fork travel, not a2c length that’s the critical thing.

Take an extreme example – like a 150mm Revelation with an internal headset versus a tapered 140mm Fox 36 with an external headset – surely the 36 fork is stressing the frame more, as that configuration is about 30mml longer, so has more leverage?

So why travel, and not a2c as the limiting factor? Intended use?

Or another example of a (old) pike 140mm vs dtswiss 150mm, dtswiss has 10mm more travel but same A-c

A-C lengths are all over the place, so we test based on worst cases and limit the travel because otherwise it gets into all sorts of issues with ‘this fork is this long’ etc. Also, fork lengths are all quoted to us designers as being +-5mm, so your ‘short’ Fox fork is probably just as long as your ‘long’ Revelation once they’ve wondered around a bit. It’s also not just about the length, but the intent. Longer travel forks means faster riding means more load into the frame. And if we say 150 is OK, people start asking if they can just ‘push it out’ to 160mm.

140mm travel is a solid, easy to understand fork spec which we know 100% that the frame is durable for all the options.

As for the internal headset thing, you’re not supposed to put internal headsets in the bottom cup of our frames. You’ll have no adjuster clearance on the down tube and you are steepening everything up. Running a 150 travel fork with an internal headset will mean it’s steeper than a 140 or 130mm fork once it’s at ride height, but with more movement (and geometry change) and steeper at the extreme end of travel, so basically it’ll be not as nice to ride.

A 36 spaced to 140mm is around the same length as a 140mm Revelation or Magura fork. It will put more load into the frame than those forks, but given we lab test with a lab fork with solid steel bars for legs, I’m happy it will be OK. As I said above, it’s not just about the static length or the stiffness of the fork chassis, it’s about the intent that comes with extra travel.

Thanks for the quick responses.

@cy what do you recommend as the optimum fork length?

Optimum is the wrong thing to ask. It’s a personal preference. I like my Soul with 120mm forks, but that’s because I have a Rocket with 160mm forks for going fast on, so I can have my Soul set up a bit shorter to keep it different. 140’s are good for going fast down and along, but make it a bit harder to hold the front end down on steep techy climbs. Paul (the other guy here) like 100mm on his Soul for ripping around Notts forest singletrack.

120mm on my Soul and they’re fine – 150mm would be too wallowy on climbs – Jumping / tabletops are OK and I’m no featherweight. If this is what you’re buying the frame for though, I’d go BFe as it will take a 150mm fork without any worries and it’ll take more of a pounding than I suspect the Soul will. Comes in green too.

I do pretty much the same on my 120 Soul as with my 160/150 Heckler. Mini DH+Enduro type riding. I often worry and wonder if the frame will break, but if it does, I know where the limit is and will think about the Bfe next time. Thing is I want my soul for XC duties and long rides too, but it encourages me to have loads of fun jumping small tables/gaps and jumps to flat 🙂 It does help that I’m fairly light and short.