I hope I don't offend anyone but a bikes soul is in how the owner/rider feels about it. After all it is just pieces of metal fashioned into a machine. I remember every bike that I have ever owned and loved every one of them. Don't you remember that feeling as a kid when you got on a new (or for us poor children) a new hand me down bike and it was heaven on Earth to go ride around. That is the feeling I try to find with each bike project I undertake. That feeling of being a child no matter how much my body aches. By the way it is nice and warm her in Riverside, CA but I still can't get motivated to ride too much. Sam DiBartolomeo