I finally finished building up a 2010 Cotic Soul I purchased second hand. Some new parts, some old. Here she is after her first bath after 3 days of riding:

IMAG0103 by smklein38, on Flickr

IMAG0099 by smklein38, on Flickr

I came from a Cannondale F4 with a Headshok, so this was quite a change in travel. Going through rock gardens was a completely different experience. Loving everything about it so far, but still have some tweaking to do.

I’m going to put on a wider bar, but wanted to get a better feel for how wide to go before buying. Leaning towards 710mm right now. I’m 5’9″ with longer than average arms and have used a 660mm bar with a long stem for the previous 4 years. I now have a 70mm stem on. Also going to swap out big ring for bashguard and perhaps grips and saddle for white. I’m also leaning towards converting to a 9mm thruaxle in the front, but I haven’t really noticed too much flex, so that’s on hold.

looks very nice that !!

Got enough seatpost there ? 🙂

Looks good though.

Wall looks suspiciously like Artex there?

small or medium frame??

It’s a medium. The seatpost looks a lot taller in the photos than I thought it looked in person. As for those glorious walls, they’re stucco.

Nice.

It’s excellent, isn’t it. Every ride you do now, you’ll look down at your bike and say “I made this!”