I rode and hung out with BG a bit in Crested Butte in '85. He and his then girlfriend (no need to drag her name through the mud, poor thing!) were riding matching lugged BG mountain bikes, with all the BG lugged road bike features: the very thin lugs with asymmetrical cutouts (waves down one side I think it was), the unique fastback seatstays, the dropout treatment, the works. Probably the only mountain bikes he ever made like that.
He wanted to be on vacation and not have to be "on duty", so he and the GF assumed names of characters from "A Prairie Home Companion" and feigned utter ignorance of the frames, and of bikes in general. "We saw 'em in this shop, I forget where, just liked 'em 'cuz they were blue, so we bought 'em. Are they supposed to be any good?"
Mark Bulgier
Seattle, Wa USA
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeanette Bell [mailto:jet@sciti.com]
> Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2001 12:44 AM
> To: Kenneth Wallace
> Cc: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> Subject: Re: [CR]Bruce Gordon
>
>
> Ken,
> The guy you talked to sounds a lot like BG hisself. One of
> his favorite
> pastimes at those trade shows is to impersonate anybody but
> him. I have
> impersonated him myself by trading eyeglasses and schmoozing
> potential customers
> while BG stood in the background looking stupid. Some people
> also thought we
> were brothers with the same mother, different fathers. BG is
> easily amused at
> boring trade shows, so if you find yourself talking to a
> cranky machinist with a
> penchant for bullshit who says he's not Bruce Gordon, it's
> probably him!
> Joe Bell
> (BG lookalike contest winner)
>
> Kenneth Wallace wrote:
>
> > At the Anaheim show a few years ago, I was talking to
> > someone at Bruce
> > Gordon's booth. I have a lugged Gordon and asked about the
> > price of a
> > lugged frame. Gordon wanted $3200 for a lugged frams
> > (acording to this guy)
> > because he had burned out his lungs not wearing a mask, and
> > if he had to
> > strap one on to do a brazed frame, he wanted a lot of money,
> >
> > Ken Wallace in sunny Phoenix (Oh, wait, that's redundant)