Recent trips to Wales and much clattering over rocks did make me pine for a full-suss every now and again.

What I like about the Soul: Climbs great with 130mm revs, love the springy whippet feeling when you let it loose on fast trails, like the simplicity of the geometry, like the strength without it being too heavy.

Borrowed a Commencal Meta a while back – HATED it. Spongy, heavy, unresponsive – like persuading a teenager to get up in the morning.

So i’m looking for a light, strong, flexible full-suss, up to about 2 grand But it’s just a world of shock types and pivots and frame materials and stuff i don’t really get, so guide me please…

Thanks

Ex soul owner here (Now replaced with simple so similar still). I’ve got a single pivot Morewood (very similar to a 5) which I really like. To me it feels very similar, though with more travel.

Soul & a Meta here 🙂
And yes, they are different.

Interested in this thread as thinking about getting rid of my 5 to get a Soul !

get a rocket, that way you can have some modern technology on your bike and still be one of the cool kids with a cotic.

I’d like to get a soul to complement my Pace 405 which is lovely.

I’ve got a Canyon Nerve AM. It hardly gets ridden at all since I got a Soul. Sorry, that’s not very helpful is it?

(To be fair, it’s mostly because the weather round here has been shite for over a year and a half. Also the fork and shock needed servicing and I’m lazy. It’s a good bike really, I’m going to put it back together soon in case we actually get a summer this year.)

Not really the same, but I sold my ’08 Five after buying a Brodie Holeshot, as it wasn’t really getting ridden.

I did intend to replace it with an Alpine 160 or newer Five AM for trips to places with lots of rocks, but circumstances have conspired against me.

Generally I love the Holeshot as it is an obscene amount of fun, but there are times that I really miss having a bouncy rear end (trip to Brechfa recently was one such time, mainly due to the a**e-pounding nature of the rocks in the singletrack).

i kinda like the look of the genesis grapil although i have no experience of riding a full sus to add. i can see where you are coming from though, clattering over rocks at afan is the only time i’ve felt a full bouncer might offer something my soul doesnt!

Cotic have a “rocket lite” coming out late summer apparently designed around 120 – 140 front and 125mm rear with he same swing arm but steeper angles and less weight. gonna be around £1300 frame only.

they recently described the rocket as a full sus bfe and the new one is supposedly a trail centre friendly full sus soul in vibe. It’s got to be worth a look if you can wait?

Until 2 weeks ago I had a Soul and a Five. Had the Soul first but going back to it after riding the Five it felt too long so I sold it.

When I spoke (via email) to Cy about sizing on a soul he said it was very similar to a H/ L five spot in geometry and sizing (which I had, and it is) so the answer is a H/L five spot, which aren’t made anymore.
IMO the soul is a tight and fun frame for whipping round the trails, so something not too slack or long travel matches well with a soul rather than a slack AM bomber, a Flux with 120mm forks would be a good yin to the Souls yang..

Hi
I have a Soul but only ridden it once due to the weather and other bikes.
Also have
Rocket
Trek Superfly 100 29er
Just bought second hand 2012 Transition Bandit 29er frame but not built up yet. The donor bike for most bits is a Cove Hummer which I will probably sell due to getting the Soul
Cheers
Steve

Wallop – out of interest, what size soul and 5 ?

A Blur Classic is my other bike. Love it to bits but ride the Soul far more often. Had an Ellsworth Moment but found it soggy and cumbersome… Great downhill, but didn’t climb like the Santa Cruz.

I think that if you like hardtails, VPP is the only suspension system worth considering. Sure, you can have a lock-out, but then you might as well be riding your hard tail.

The Blur climbs like a hardtail with rear suspension, if that makes sense. Which it clearly doesn’t. 🙂

I think that if you like hardtails, VPP is the only suspension system worth considering.

Quite a statement! 😉

Tim – Cy’s developing an ‘FS Soul’ with 120mm travel. Might be worth seeing what that comes out like?

Cheers Luke

[edit] you’re welcome to try my FS bike one Sunday once the clag’s gone 🙂

iainc – medium Soul, 17″ Five. I’m 5’8″ but a bird so have shorter arms than my more manly counterparts.

I have a small Soul mk2 (120mm Reba) and a medium Heckler 6.0 with 36mm 160 forks (xfusion).
I seem to ride them in equal amounts, and whatever bike I’m on, I realise how much I love both bikes.
You know whats good about the soul. On the Heckler I can just plough through and keep peddling over multiple rooty descents. It is obviously far more forgiving on drops to flat. Its heavy (33lb), but climbs well enough on shorter rides. Over 15miles of ups and downs and I really start to think I should have something lighter! But those first few miles I dont really notice the weight penalty as it soaks up the trail. It has 1 pivot making it simple to keep, but still more hassle than the soul and not so worthwhile riding in the mud and gloop.

Trips to Alps, I wouldnt consider my Soul. But I’m taking the Soul to Dyfi Enduro in May, so amy really looking forward to trying the HT on the ClimachX. Previously I would always take the FS to Wales as I didnt want to regret not taking it. The length of the Dyfi has me thinking I dont want the weight.

I’m a fanboi so I went Hemlock- love it, but it’s really not much like a Soul. Maybe it was at first but I monster-trucked it. It does a different job and it’s got some Soul-soul but the ride’s not alike.

If you want something Soul-ish but full-suss, and not heavy, Stumpy Evo would be worth looking at- testride on that reminded me so much of testriding the Soul, proper waggy tail bike.

I had a Cube Ltd which I found to be too nervy on techy stuff, and built myself a bouncer around a secondhand Canyon Nerve 140 frame. That now has 150 Revs on. I rode that for a while before realising that I still enjoyed the hardtail in certain circumstances, but wanted something slacker for trails, so I got a Soul frame and spacered the Reba off the Cube to 120mm.

I then mostly rode the Soul, and only very rarely rode the bouncer until a few weeks ago, when I dusted it off and took it out for a more epic ride.

I realise I was in danger of neglecting the bouncer. It taught me confidence where I lacked it on certain trails (especially rocky techy stuff which the Cube was simply scary on) and bizarrely this has translated into more confidence to tackle that sort of stuff on the Soul.

I took the bouncer to Philips Park last week, where I supposed I would be massively overbiked, but far from it, it was a scream.

So, from a latecomer, arthritic mincecore 50 year old, my mix of bikes seem to complement each other. Time will tell whether I ever “send it” big stylee, or whether the newfound confidence leading to a bit of airtime simply means I don’t ‘fraid what I consider to be the big stuff quite as much. 😀

Cy from cotic suggested in an email that the rocket is to the bfe what the new bike is to the soul so if you can wait till summer you may have your ideal frame

Really? A full-suss Soul? Now I’m keen. Cy, if you want to, you know, tell us everything…

Ridden a soul for nearly 10 years, I’m on my second one, and when it breaks or dies, I’ll buy another. I bought a heckler 18 months ago, but felt similar to superfli that it was a wee bit much on long rides, so sold it a couple of weeks ago. I’ve got a rocket coming in 4 weeks, and I hoping its a little more ‘alive’, I have no idea if it will be, but hope so.

I know you can’t glean an awful lot from magazine articles but the WMB out next Tues has trail bike of the year. The Grapil 20 is in the test.

I think that if you like hardtails, VPP is the only suspension system worth considering.

I reckon my DW link 5 spot climbs better than the Blur LT I replaced

Trek Ex8 but fitted with 140 talas…relatively light and rear feels more like 140 too.

Might change to the ‘rocket light’ when the frame becomes available (hopefully green or blue).

I’ve got one of the early Souls – also had one of the last of the original shape Blurs. Had to sell the Blur to fund either a) a road bike or b) a divorce. My 10 year old still finds it funny that I get emotional when I see a Blur. One day he will understand why….

Put a bit of info on this thread…..

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/120mm-fs-frame#post-4846063