@mattjg: guilty as charged I’m afraid…
How do they compare? Well, at 6′ a medium Soul is pretty much at it’s extremes for me so the slightly longer Solaris is actually a better fit (pretty much perfect infact).
I did a 5 hour ride with a mate of roughly the same size so we swapped between the Soda and Solaris and all I can say is that he went away with the (orange) Solaris and I subsequently sold the Soda (for the Rocket) and I now have a green one… and I don’t have any regrets (so far at any rate).
The Solaris is more stable on the descents, climbs that bit better (I think that’s at least partly because of the wheel base and me not being so far over the back wheel) and doesn’t lose too much of the flickability of the Soul. And its green…
And I’ve just added some more (build) pictures to flickr…
ETA: yeah, it rides like you’d expect a Cotic to ride. But still different to the Soul. Just not wildly so…