Haven't read most of the replies, so I may be repeating information. This is just my perspective.
I raced tri and USCF road races on Softride bikes, customs made by Paul Barkley (the original builder for the Softride brand) in steel and a TiCycles made by Dave Levy our of titanium (duh). LOVED them. Were they "faster"? Not in a pure speed sense -- didn't help my sprinting in any way (basically I never had much of a sprint, though doing some track racing helped). They never held me back on climbs (a couple USCF district hillclimb titles to back that up). But they were faster. Not in the first hour, but when hour two got into the wee space it made a huge difference being isolated from road buzz. I had my TiCycles frame built with a low stack to allow for better tri positioning, and placed the beam more forward than production frames to increase the lever arm and get more supple travel.
I'm currently using the Kinekt seatpost, designed by some of the original Softride folks. Really liking it. Does much of the same thing as the Softride beam, but with a smaller travel limit. Very active unit, worth a try.
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