Soul

[clubby]

Seems like all threads involving modern bikes have a comment somewhere about them lacking “soul”. Has me wondering (as my toddler moves slowly onto yet another bit if toast for breakfast) what is the soul?

From experience, different bikes can have very different personalities, but would struggle to identify any particular traits that give soul. Seems like a bike has it or doesn’t.

Of my last two retro purchases, one did and one didn’t. I’d found a Cannondale Delta V in a sorry state and spent a year and too much money building it back up with Coda parts and new fork parts. Around the same time I bought a complete 89 Kona Fire Mountain. The Dale had a certain something but the Kona just felt old. I know those Konas have a big following but it did nothing for me. Was it just because it was a low end model without the spark of a better frame or did I just not have the same emotional investment having just bought it whole?

Don’t buy into the theory that all modern bikes lack soul, but I do think that with so many similar designs it’s difficult find something different. Orange are a noticeable exception. Never ridden one but to me they have a definite soul.

My Saffron very much has one but that was a custom build passion project. Would it have one to someone else who rode it but didn’t know the story?

So, what gives Soul or just as importantly, is there anything that would automatically rule it out for you (apart from being a Specialized obviously ).

 

[Tsundere]

For me soul in this instance refers to authenticity.

There is difference between something built for a specific purpose by craftsmen, shaped by expertise, knowledge and understanding using the finest materials, most advanced techniques and creative innovations available in order to maximize performance - and something that is designed to mimic those things in order to convince as many people as possible to part with their money.

Great engineering always has soul, most consumer products lack it. There is a middle ground and that is where terms like vintage and pedigree come into play, some consumer products inherit and retain more from their cutting edge origins than others and so it can be claimed that they too have soul, mtb's of a certain standard from the era that we are all here to celebrate definitely fall into that category due to their close ties with the very beginnings of the sport, even many mass produced and relatively inexpensive bikes from towards the end of that era exhibit the qualities that gave birth to those brands reputations in the first place.

It is the level of authentic lineage that survives the gradual transformation over time from hand crafted masterpiece to mass production that determines to what degree a brands soul remains intact. It can't be faked, it can't be manufactured, no amount of marketing can inject a product with it, soul is derived from a hard earned reputation and pedigree and it diminishes the further from its roots a brand drifts.

Ferrari's have soul, Tesla's do not.

 

[widowmaker]

It's difficult to explain but in term of bikes its the sort that are dreamed up in old scuffy workshops not for making money but building something better, stronger, by eccentric people, rather than on a boardroom table by marketing departments.

Using the above car analogy.

My Wife's 21 plate Compact SUV has no soul, my 1991 Twin carbed 865 kgs, 130 bhp Honda Civic has soul.

 

[velomaniac]

This is a quandary, what defines soul in a piece of human artifice.
This is a comparison I have heard in the world of motorbikes. A mass produced east Germany motorcycle, an MZ and a mass produced Japanese Honda motorcycle. They say the MZ has soul and the Honda doesn't. Is the fact the MZ is quirky and unreliable and the Honda is bland but reliable a factor?
I think soul in a machine is defined by the human relationship to the machine not anything to do with the machine itself.
Consequently because most humans cannot agree completely on anything the soul question is entirely subjective. A machines soul depends only on opinion not on any tangible fact. The jury is out.

 

[widowmaker]

Not new bike hating because I am sure there are new bikes out there that have soul. My few years old Giant hardtail has no soul whatsoever, it's samey styling is bland, it is quick, it's comfortable, it's competent, it does everything well but I get to my destination feeling cold/untroubled like I've driven.

Whereas my Explosif, White Spider and Rockhopper make me feel something, difficult to pinpoint but they feel alive.

 

[firedfromthecircus]

I think soul in a machine is defined by the human relationship to the machine not anything to do with the machine itself.
Consequently because most humans cannot agree completely on anything the soul question is entirely subjective. A machines soul depends only on opinion not on any tangible fact.

Weird that the new forum software has a hammer emoji, but not a nail one! Perhaps it is lacking in soul?
Anyway, just trying to say Velo has nailed it in the quote above.

As for your Specialized comments Clubby, are you trying to fill the space vacated by Mikee or something? Quit with the Specialized bashing or we will come for the plastic GT's!
But on that note, and just to echo what Velo said, I think my '97 Stumpy M2 had a ton of soul when I bought it new. I loved that bike, and it loved me back. 15 years on when I sold it to ZigZag, our relationship had changed somewhat. But that was down to me, and not the bike!

 

[novocaine]

I dont think a bike is born with soul. I think you give it a soul when you make it your own. With modern "cookie cutter" off the peg bikes this is hard or almost impossible to do, the parts you'd change are either already on it at the shop or, possibly due to modern standards, impossible to retro fit. The sheer cost of doing these changes also doesnt help. So a modern bike never gets it soul in the same way as your bike from the 90s or 00s got then and still gets now. Its the difference between a mk8 golf and a mk1 golf. The mk1 gets its soul from you spending time woth it. Tinkering and tweaking this and that. The mk8 goes to the garage once a year and in betweeen there is little you can do to it. It's is just a car.

 

[2manyoranges]

Ah....SOUL

There are some things in the universe which we can’t actually see....we just feel their effects. Gravity. Magnetic fields. You can’t touch them, or see them. They are just there, tugging us hither and thither. The thing is....SOUL is available to a few manufacturers and builders, and it comes in very small, exorbitantly expensive bottles, and of course has to be cooled to minus 473 for storage. One drop is enough to create the glow of SOUL in a build. Only some manufacturers have access to SOUL and that shows. The absence of SOUL has been seen in horrible appearance, shonky ride, and cracked seattubes (you know who you are...). They said their frames had SOUL but they lied.

Now enough of that nonsense. Velomaniac is on top of contemporary Realist Philosophy. Good call.

Seriously, the ‘institutional theory of art’ (Osbourne) says that there is no inherent quality of ‘art’, whereby things have ‘artiness’ and others do not. It’s an agreed set of features, imposed by humans on objects. The agreement makes it so. SOUL I believe is the same - we impose it on builds. It’s real, in that we make it real, but it’s not an objective part of a bike. It’s real because we feel it’s real, and that makes us behave differently. It’s real in that sense and that sense only. But for sure some bikes have features and history and impact which make them very SOULFUL - they stimulate the rise of a sense of SOUL in us. The Race OR - mmmmm. The COTIC Soul ... mmmmm. Fat Chance ....

And it’s not just retro bikes. Stanton Switch9er TI. SOOOOUUUL.

And I have had bikes which don’t attract a crowd of admiring people of all ages...and I have had some which just act like a SOUL magnet. ‘...Cool bike!...’ from aging hippies and Gen Z alike. It brings out the SOUL people....

 

[slackboy]

Just because I know @2manyoranges was itching to do this:

 

[2manyoranges]

SlackB - excellent.

In the words of Dieter Meier....

OOOOHHHH YEAAAAAAH