Evolution of the Albert

I've had the Prince Albert frame for about 8 months now and its had a lot of (ab)use. When I first built it up I basically transferred across the components from my marin, now while these were perfectly good components they probably weren't the most suited to the frame. The Fox forks were a touch short resulting in a headangle that was a touch too steep (the fact that they were far to linear and dove through most of travel witht the slightest touch of the front brake didn't help either.) The stem was a bit long too making the steering a bit slow but my silly long upper body sort of hid this a bit as it didn't feel too long.

The old jey XC build.


The new freeride-lite build.


I recently changed the stem to a short 60mm Truvativ one, which has improved the handling no end (it wasn't bad as it was) and I have just bought and fitted a set of Marzocchi Z1 FR SL forks (to replace The Fox Forx Talas R's which proved themselves to be distictly unBritain proof), which will bring the front end up a bit, slacken the head angle and raise the Bottom Bracket a touch.
Pretty much the rest of the components have remained the same bar stuff being replaced when it has worn out.

I guess the new build is better suited to the sort of riding I have found myself being drawn too, I seem to be riding harder on the downs, chilling on the ups and have plans to spend some time down at Chicksands hopefully progressing my 'shore skills.