If you keep them at the less GRRRRR end of a setup (i.e. less than 700mm wide bars, max 120mm forks, not sticky tyres), and particularly if you’re not a big lad, they’re brilliant. The issue is that the last couple of mag tests had the bike with very stiff modern forks, very grippy tyres and very wide bars, in the large size. All of these things are the maximum that the Soda was designed for and trends for wide bars and stickiness of tyres in particular kind of overtook the bike. It’s still ace with a lighter build though. It is purposefully springy as the Soul is very lively and comfy as steel frames go, and the Soda was designed to be ‘more’ obviously ti than the Soul.
Having ridden a couple different options during the new Soul/Soda development, it became clear to me that the Soul was about as ‘springy’ as you’d want for really pushing on with a wider bar/big tyre setup, so basically the new frame now has similar torsional stiffness as the Soul, with the biggest different now being a slightly softer ride vertically and most obviously the much lower weight.