Soul

Interesting.

From the opening post i get the impression you are speaking of the bike itself having soul. There seems to be 2 other types of soul which are mentioned above, the soul put into a bike by the builder and the soul put into a bike by the owner.

Now i suppose the soul put into a bike by the builder comes through, as mentioned, in its construction, materials and engineering skills along with time and passion etc. The soul put into a bike by the owner i guess comes from personal preferences, expectations, desire, aesthetics etc. Which leaves the original notion of the actual bike having soul, which is what i perceive as the meaning when someone mentions the bike having soul.

For me it comes down to the ride, does the bike come alive, react to the terrain, adapt, overcome, above and beyond what the rider or components bring to the ride. In my view it changed when (can not remember the year for reference) for regulations frames had to meet certain strength targets so builders lost some of the ability to build flex etc and the frames lost their character, their soul, and became more of a tool than an full complete experience.

I prefer steel bikes mainly for this characteristic, i can feel the bike, the bike feels alive, has soul. Now i have had and do have modern Prestige bikes, they are made from the same tubesets but have to be built stronger and definitely lack some of their earlier cousins soulful traits, they feel lifeless in comparison.
 
It's an emotional attachment nothing else.
Hence modern bike have no emotional attachment, no significance in these people lives. So they have no soul.


GTs have no soul, neither do Specialized, Marin* etc i have no emotional attachment, no significance, no need to horde them (hording disorder?). No need to feel like they or I want them.
The have no soul. They are just another bike when I ride them.
Modern bikes do have soul.. To the people who grow up with them and live and look after them.

It all personal opinion, nothing else.
 
Because we spend a lot of intimate time with certain objects like bikes, cars and watches, we develop a relationship with them - like we do with other people.

And like other people, we have a range of - often contrary - ways of getting on with intimate things: love, despise, tolerate, use, misunderstand, forgive, persue, reject etc.

Thank goodness for bicycles and other intimate objects.
 
Some man made materials joined together to form triangles, or some shapes, that other man made materials are added to so a human can ride it has no soul. It is just humans projecting feelings/desires/dreams/wishes about themselves onto that object, or being all romantic about it as the tubes were rolled on the thighs of a beautiful being and joined together with fairy magic, in a shed in middle england.

The above machine might not have soul but it could definitely have character, though. Maybe in the way it looks, how it responds to terrain, or to how it is being ridden. Just like some bikes and cars do, both old and new.
 
I think several others have already nailed what it is, which is subjective.

But I do think that if you can somehow feel the human touch, then it probably has soul.

It might be from the builder, the design, the details; it might be from the bike itself, the owner's personal touches and (good) taste, the changes they've made to it over time; it might be the present rider you're watching on it, the way they ride it; it might be the way YOU ride it.

And it doesn't need to be a boutique bike; it doesn't even need to be old. It just needs that little magic thing, where you know it's loved, and you can't quite put your finger on the rest.

I've seen plenty of mass-produced bikes with that something special, parked outside pubs and bars, libraries and restaurants and train stations, on the trails, at the co-ops and farmers markets, lashed to backs of cars and decks of boats. It's that thing where you know it's ridden and that whoever rides it has it setup just the way they want it.

So I guess that means soul is the personality of the rider transferred to the bike itself. As others have already said.

But I think it's also fair to say that it's the builder often times too. All the master builders and welders produced bikes with soul. Potts. Brodie. Bontrager. Shafer (man, whatever soul is, old Salsa had it by the bucketload). Chance. FTW. Manitou. Cunningham. So I guess it's also the handcrafted element for me, and it's the same in clothing, or jewelry, or sculpture and design. It's when you can see and feel a person's hand on it, the decisions they've made along the way. I've held vases and bowls that make me feel the same way; I've stared at paintings for hours, and reread sentences over and over.

These two images spring immediately to mind (both permanently saved to my desktop, for constant inspiration):

dbm-2-001_orig.jpg

repack-ham-84.jpg

That's it. Whatever it is. Guys in garages, making magic out of metal.

And I'll probably, almost certainly, never own a bike built by either.

Maybe I'll get an old Salsa one day tho.

And if I do, I hope it feels like this:

salsa1.jpg

SOUL.
 
PWPW…..Ooooooh yeah….nice

In the ‘90s I went into a workshop and there for a minor thing was an Alpinestars - just one of their standard double diamonds, not E stay, and it was immediately noticeable that this was a beautifully sorted, used and respected bike…everything just so….nothing ostentatious, no 3DV, just brilliantly selected parts and everything setup to work. They do stand out, I think. Not saying ‘look at me, look at me…..’ - nope, they just just attract the SOUL feeling like a magnet…..
 
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