Met him in 2015 at an event called Bicycle Art Meets Form in High Point, NC. He was one of four framebuilders who were invited to display one of their bikes in an art gallery setting to coincide with a cycling race held that weekend.
It's a Friday nite, a bunch of us bike geeks are standing in said art gallery looking at four beautiful bikes on stands. Bruce is standing next to his bike, and someone asks him, what's the trail on that fork? He looks at it for a few seconds, rubs his chin and says, hell if I know....which bought the house down.
Then in that spirit, he tells the story of his mechanic coming up to him recently and saying, uh, Bruce, you know, you don't have to build up all these frames you're still making....you can leave that to me, OK? Bruce asked him why, and the mechanic says, because every time you do, I have to redo everything you did. If you stick to framebuilding, we're all good.
There was a display of classic bikes in a huge atrium, and one of them was a Bruce Gordon that had 24k highlighting. Bruce said that he asked the owner if he could buy it back, but the owner wanted a small fortune, which of course Bruce didn't have at that point. I could tell when he told that story, there was some wistfulness. Days gone by. Edit: Found a couple pix I took of that bike.
More than anything else, those three little vignettes told me more about him as a human being than as a legendary framebuilder. I respect him for both. RIP, Bruce. Your memory lives on.
