[Closed] New Soul from Cotic

http://www.cotic.co.uk/news/2017/soullaunch

Just seen on FB.

Personally not that keen on mercury colour, definitely not with orange/black accents, though the pink is growing on me. Not liking the orange massively really, particularly the soul logo surround looks odd.

Really don't like the coloured hope kit on the built up example.

Why do they never quote wheelbase....stack is way too low for someone with long legs and short upper body like myself, shame as I quite like the raw silver colour

I like the Orange frame & Silver/Pink frame, but hate the 'Soul' sticker on the TT. It looks out of place. Like a kids MBUK free sticker.

Not keen on the demo build either. Gold accents don't tie together. Should have gone Hope black or orange to match the decals.

Really like Cy's explanation.

&

Earlier this year we hacked the front end off a Soul275 and our friends at 18 Bikes welded on a radically different geometry front end. We increased the length to the point where most riders would need a 35mm stem, and then used anglesets to find the balance point on the head angle where you would get the confidence you need in the front end, with nice crisp turn in for the singletrack, without making it over responsive and nervous.

I like this approach to R&D. Down to earth & humble.

Is a 35mm stem loads different to a 50mm stem in the way it feels to ride? 50mm is the shortest I've gone, what am I missing?

Is a 35mm stem loads different to a 50mm stem in the way it feels to ride? 50mm is the shortest I've gone, what am I missing?

Yes, amazingly so. If you lay a metre rule from grip to grip on typical bars with a 50mm stem you'll see that the effective stem length is even shorter - maybe 20 or 30mm of forwards offset from steerer to hands. With a 35mm stem you're approaching zero effective stem length.

It feels VERY direct, more precise control when climbing but noticeably less stability when you weight the bars - so you need a long and slack enough bike for it to not feel too nervous, plus pretty wide bars. I prefer how a 50mm stem feels but I have a 35 on my hardtail for fit reasons.

So, basically Cy has lopped 100mm off the expected stem length since the first iteration!

I think I started with a 75mm stem on my first (batch 1) Soul.

So, basically Cy has lopped 100mm off the expected stem length since the first iteration!

More like 40mm or so.

On the subject of 35mm vs 50mm stems, there's a clear difference but both are within the useful zone of adjustment (without making the bike handle weird) for me.

Is a 35mm stem loads different to a 50mm stem in the way it feels to ride?

Went over earlier for a look. The mercury/orange one is a large and did look kinda long. There's a LOT of TT there. The orange medium was still on the stand being built, but looked fairly bikey to me - not obviously an oil tanker, and the mercury/pink small looked just like a 4x bike, which is a good thing in my book! Long, low and fast as ****!. Also there was Cy's original Soul proto which looked [i]very[/i] strange in modern company - even for me who's still riding 26". Kinda top heavy with the saddle right back on a long post and a 90mm stem with narrow high rise bars.

Went back into the Cotic website archives, and 90mm was indeed pretty normal on the original Soul.
So 55mm lobbed off since then.

By the way, this was the oldest page I could find, from 2002… http://www.cotic.co.uk/news/spy

Went back into the Cotic website archives, and 90mm was indeed pretty normal on the original Soul.

I've probably still got Cy's email somewhere recommending me a medium Soul, a 90mm stem and a (loooong) layback seat pin 😀

I can't believe you people even doubted me! 😉

I've probably still got Cy's email somewhere recommending me a medium Soul, a 90mm stem and a (loooong) layback seat pin

So what was the recommended fork of the era? Details!

I couldn't find one on my normal account (it would've been 2007) but I did find one from 2010 when I was asking about a Soda. I was asking about the merits of wide (711!) bars, layback pin & 70mm stem vs narrower, inline & 90mm stem (the answer was inline and 90 would put me too far forwards.

I do specifically mention TALAS forks at either 100 or 120.... 😀

I really don't like the look of that meticallic one, proportions and colour look dire - and this from a cotic fan and previous Soul owner :(.

You can still do mincing on a modern geometry long bike.

Personally I think longer frames look better, as well as riding better.

So what was the recommended fork of the era? Details!

Not fussed on the look of it either way, but those numbers look good to me.

I'm bang in the middle of a medium, for a change. Will be saving my pennies to swap my vitus frame for one of them in the future. I'll only need a new back wheel too. Oh and a 180mm dropper.

I really don't like the look of that meticallic one, proportions and colour look dire

TBF to Cotic these long hardtails all look wrong proportion wise to me, it's not a specific Cotic issue. Full sus seem to carry the proportions fine, but not steel hardtails.

Is this new Soul going to be any different in real world terms than the Solaris Max?

Having quickly test ridden a Solaris Max with both wheelsets I would say so based on how that felt vs my 2012 26 BFe (admit 2017 Soul geo is quite different)

Solaris Vs Soul then?

Generall alrounder - the Solaris May have taken the Souls crown?

and the mercury/pink small looked just like a 4x bike

Cotic people reading this, I'd like to see side-on pics of an XS and small built up please, because if it looks right it probably is.

Is this new Soul going to be any different in real world terms than the Solaris Max?

Maybe they should be merged as Soularis?

Cotic people reading this, I'd like to see side-on pics of an XS and small built up please, because if it looks right it probably is.

And a medium too! You should send a memo to Deviate regarding seat tube lengths - their new bike looks so right apart from that. Short is good - droppers are LONG!

Small and Medium bikes are built ready to shoot for the launch… although this thread, with the quick advance photos, using the large, intended for the mailing list peeps, has sort of got ahead of that, hasn't it.

Shoot them from the side as well as the arty 3/4 shots please 🙂

The Soul page on the Cotic website in Dec 2002:

https://web.archive.org/web/20021218084407/http://www.cotic.co.uk:80/

I like how the words to describe the bike have barely changed:

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Hello everyone!

As has been alluded to above, the Soul has always been about progressive handling, especially when it first arrived. It's just the rest of the world caught up over time. I used a 90mm stem on the first prototype with 680mm bars, and ended up with an 80mm stem and 710mm bars by the time I switched off 26" wheels, this on a large. Paul rides a small and had a 65mm stem on his even in 2003, and we have never advocated stems longer than 90mm, ever. Moving to a sizing that allows the use of super short stem even for tall chaps like me is why there's been such a big change. And it needed bigger jumps between the length of the sizes so people had less need to adjust sizing with stem length. We are trying to keep stems for handling, not bike fit.

And the change in the other parts of the layout are all because it needs to work as a system. 35mm stems fell amazing when you have the length in the bike, but also because they make the steering so responsive you need to slacken the head angle to counter this slightly, so the rate of steering response is intuitive. We tried the length and 35mm stem with the previous generation geometry and it just didn't work. We kept adjusting it until we found what we consider to be the sweet spot.

Seriously, riding it believing on these things, and luckily we have a demo tour for that. Soul will be on demo from a couple of weeks' time.

Drop me an email any time if you have specific questions.

Cheers

Cy

kelvin - Member
Small and Medium bikes are built ready to shoot

Sideviews of build up bikes in S and M would be really helpful. Please! 🙂

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A few more photos now here … http://www.cotic.co.uk/product/soul#gallery

More next week… everyone busy today… have a good weekend peeps.

Love that orange one ! Nice !

I said Friday was Cotic day didn't I 😉

Phwoar! That (XS?) chromey one's geet lush as owt.

I think that chrome one is a small, not an XS. The new Souls have properly short seat tubes - as they should for looooong dropper posts.

The orange one must be a medium because the seat tube looks as long as the chainstays.

I'm going to have to test ride some of these. Wondering if a small might work for me as a play bike in the woods...

While the Cotic peeps are looking at this, can anyone tell me if the latest Bfe 26 is a 135mm qr rear?

kelvin - Member

A few more photos now here … http://www.cotic.co.uk/product/soul#gallery

More next week… everyone busy today… have a good weekend peeps.

Many thanks! <3

Dammit and there was me thinking I wanted a new BFe. I think it's finally time to scratch my Soul itch since seeing them first in What Mountain Bike hardtail frame shootout years ago.

Stunning pictures by the way! 🙂

https://www.flickr.com/photos/coticltd/with/37863997465/

I've got a hankering for a hardtail again and that chrome one is screaming at me

Demo needs to be arranged...

Sorry, me again. This is an M frame, I guess. What fork length is it please? 120mmm Pike? thx!

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I am a fanboi, Solaris, BFe, RoadRat and Soul. Though I did give my stepson the soul ...
Dunno why but that leave me cold ... 🙁

The rear stay bridge on the BFe now shouts Emmelle ... ab the shiny soul with stick on graphics is a little Tescos at best ...

Sorry, me again. This is an M frame, I guess. What fork length is it please? 120mmm Pike? thx!

130mm Pike I expect. It's one of the custom options. Play with the Soul bike order page and you'll see all the fork options…

So being a jammy sod and having mates in high places, I managed to steal that orange bike^^^ for a couple of hours this morning.

Due to some technical issues with the forks I ended up with a pair of 140mm X-Fusion Sweeps rather than the Pikes.

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Looks surprisingly normal, ey?

I had the medium BFe on demo a couple of weeks back, so the idea was to ride the same trails and see how different it was. Sadly I'm a bit broken at the moment, so I wasn't able to give it full beans, but there was still stuff to learn.

It climbs very competently - even with the longer than "optimum" forks, I didn't get to try steep AND technical, but it winched up steep and managed a slimy bouldery muddy climb twice without putting a foot wrong, despite an optimistic rear tyre for the time of year (WTB Trailboss). Despite pretty similar builds the Soul is appreciably lighter too.

Compared to the BFe it was very obvious how much more comfortable it was. There's not the same sense of invincibility, but neither do you need to walk back up a rocky DH to go find your eyeballs again. As a relative lightweight (65kg), even though I'd love to "need" a BFe, actually the Soul is far more useful as a general purpose bike for me. It's not as outright whippy as my Soda, nor as snappy handling - no bad thing as I struggle with the transition to riding that after time on my Rocket, but as a general jack-of-all-trades, it scores pretty much spot on

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I didn't get to to push either my or the bike's limits DH thanks to last weekends little lie down which has left me with a left leg that is a little unreliable, but at a comfortable 75% pace descending, the bike felt entirely natural - the lesson learnt from the BFe experiment about weighting the front had stuck and it was all very much just like "riding a bike"

To the big question - orange or mercury/pink?