Bandera

"I left everything nearly unedited so that the Chicago art student turned bike builder turned industry critic could speak for himself. Enjoy words straight from the Bruce’s mouth."
-Retirement Interview: Bruce Gordon

https://www.bikerumor.com/2017/10/27...nal_interview/

repechage

Quite a read. Some I knew, plenty I did not.
Baylis did also seem to avoid doctors, I had another friend who did that and it did not go well for his widow and son. Another friend of mine long ago stated flatly, there are no old Imron painters.

The make your own "stuff"... I like the concept, designing tires and having a good tire company make them does not support that though. Good tires btw. QBP comes through as very savvy and cunning.

bikemig 

This is a great read; thanks for posting.

thinktubes 

Good read - interesting guy to say the least.

gomango

Good interview.

FWIW I'm surprised that I don't own a Bruce Gordon bike.

I have admired his bikes for such a long time.

I did own one of the Taiwanese Rock n Roads and shouldn't have sold it.

It was a great pack mule!

However, I run Rock n Road tires on my Monstercross. Just a fantastic tire for the $$$$.

No need to pay Compass prices when these exist. imho

DSC00029 by gomango1849, on Flickr

52telecaster

thanks for posting. great read.

Bikerider007

Lots of drama back then based on reads like this and the Confente story. All about the benjamin's. I guess that's why Confente's passion and work are so we'll regarded.

Although, I was interested in where a young hippy got 27k, that seems like the good story.

gugie 

So I'm wondering who the guy was with the repainted Bruce Gordon:

"...The L’Eroica, that’s a later thing. There is a guy that shows up on the internet. It’s a bike I built in the 70’s. He’s had it repainted, there are pictures all over the internet. He rode it in the L’Eroica. Paul and I had gone down for that. He ended up coming up to Petaluma and said to me, “Do you have any souvenirs?” “Souvenirs?” He ended up buying two water bottles. $10. “Mine is one of the good old ones because Bruce Gordon doesn’t make them anymore.”

Anybody from the forum?

gugie 

Interesting background about Italian chrome forks. We think of chrome as being expensive, but when you do a big batch, it's cheaper than paint. For labor, chrome scales, paint doesn't. Thinking about that, if you chrome all the way up the chainstays, all you need to paint is the main triangle, which has larger surface areas, and is easier to paint.

So what we think of as sexy Italian, was really a cost cutting measure!

KonAaron Snake 

Thanks for posting bandera!

I enjoyed the interview a lot...

BG is refreshing...doesn't romanticize it, makes great products and tries to survive in a crazy industry. He knows he's nuts/difficult, but he channels it into a funhouse mirror.

FWIW - the few times I've spoken with him, he was funny, bright, engaging and helpful. Just don't be a schmuck. Keep in mind the dude's trying to make a living.

Really enjoyed the MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION story with Eisentraut...I see this stuff real world all of the time. Let's just all take a moment to be grateful that it didn't involve many of the old Masi gang.

jpaschall

Very enjoyable. I believe the guy behind Black Mountain Cycles now owns the large pink bike featured toward the top of the article.

KonAaron Snake 

Owning a pink Bruce Gordon would not suck.

gomango

Not surprising that Mike Varley would choose to use pink for one of his runs of the Monstercross.





I had one briefly until my brother bought it out from under me.

FWIW Bruce Gordon and Mike Varley have led rides out of Mike Varley's Point Reyes shop.

We're heading out that way over winter break. I wonder if Mike will have the pink BG in the shop?

edit: Visited BMC's blog and answered my own question. Great pics of the pink BG!!!!

https://blackmtncycles.com/retirement/

merziac

You are absolutely correct even if its green!

Scooper

Anna Schwinn is Richard's daughter and is a really great interviewer.

mstateglfr 

Really interesting to read how torn he is when it comes to production of goods. He clearly holds outsourcing as an inferior process compared to doing it yourself, but he makes an effort to compliment Japan and rips on China, Taiwan, and Thailand.
He outsourced his own products and triwd importing products while ripping on soma and VO for doing the same.


It must be a very tough reality to come to terms with and a fine balance to meet, mentally speaking, to justify without compromising.


Also- these cantis are killer. Figuratively and perhaps literally!

himespau 

I was bummed that he wasn't able to sell the business intact, but I get a lot of that business was him. It's got to be hard to be in that spot and see what people want to do with your life's work.

nlerner

Well, maybe the bitter-and-angry thing is an inside joke, but he sure seems bitter and angry.

3alarmer 

...yeah. Reminds me a lot of some of the artists I used to know, back when I was swimming against the tide of progress trying to make stuff out of glass and steel. It's rare anyone makes it to the point where he (or she) can pay him (or her) self much of what we now consider a middle class wage making stuff by hand and hawking it to the impressionable public. It's not like there are a whole lot of ceramicists other than Dale Chihuly getting rich off hand blown glass...and he hasn't made his own stuff for many years now. The retirement benefits for self employed artist craftsmen generally suck.

I had not heard that story about Brian Bayliss, though. That's a real shame.

The one person I know of who made a ton of cash being a blacksmith was Francis Whittaker, in Aspen. He was doing all the architectural ironwork for the rich folks there. But it turns out he made much more money in real estate ventures there than he brought in through the business (personal contact source). Petaluma, in the time Bruce Gordon has been there, has had a huge spike in development and real estate spillover from the SF Bay area. Probly a lesson in all of that somewhere.




The last time the hand built bike show was here in Sacramento, one of my friends went over to Bruce Gordon to try to source some of the proprietary rack attachment hardware it takes to fit one of his old (very popular) racks.

He was somewhat taken aback by Mr Gordon's response, and did not get one of those "Bruce Gordon was nice to me" buttons.

It does look like he is going to "be that guy", because the dispersal sale for the entire business that he was trying to sell for a quarter mil nest egg is scheduled for next weekend over in Petaluma. Not sure I can make it, but it will probably be filled with guys offering him a dime on the dollar for stuff. I feel kinda bad for him.

Kobe 

Good interview. Bruce Gordon does come off as a bit grump though. Might just be his dry sense of humor.

A garage sale seems like an odd way to liquidate a business for someone as well known as BG. Just like the initial quarter mil proposal for every thing except the bikes and tire businesses.

Hopefully he will have enough revenue from the tires to make a comfortable retirement. I know I'll be buying more.

gomango

I hope so as well. Those tires are very nice and I would eventually like to try some on a 650b all road project I am cooking up.

I also think he could have worked on a "collaboration" bike with Black Mountain Cycles. BG has a Monstercross that has some neat details in common with Mike's at BMC. The Monstercross that BG offered had discs at a decent pricepoint for a complete bike. It would have given Mike a custom option going forward. Easy to be an armchair quarterback when it comes to marketing, but Bruce had a strong position to take advantage of the burgeoning gravel bike interest across the country. He was there way ahead with his knowledge of mtb's and mtb tires.

Monster Cross - Rock 'n Road ? Nothing is better than a bike that fits

KonAaron Snake 

I can see this reading, but it's not quite what I read. To me it was the non-romanticized view of a guy with a sardonic sense of humor. I thought it was honest, self reflective and insightful...most of the scathing bite was aimed inwards, but a lot of us end up with a regret or two...and some self disappointment. I didn't see a guy angry at the world - I saw a guy speaking honestly about his path and some of the pit falls. He also knew he could be a bit...difficult and unreasonable...and that makes it easier to swallow. It's schmucks who think they're always right that really bug me.

gomango

Ditto.

Bottom line is simple.

This icon deserves a happy retirement.

He's given us a lot over the decades.....

merziac

+1 Exactly this, he makes no excuses, he did it his way and for us that's a good thing.

Anyone that doesn't have one should get on it.

pcb 

I dunno. I don't want to be cynical, but the only difference I see between BG and Soma/VO, as far as production parts/frames are concerned, is that Soma/VR are more successful at it than BG was. Bruce clearly doesn't make his own tires, and he never moved to Japan or Taiwan to build frames there. So anything he's imported has a lot of value added by someone else. Just like Soma/VO. He's thumbing his nose at others using an identical business model, somehow thinking they're sell-outs and he's pure. I don't buy it.

Soma/VO don't offer one-off custom frames, so that's a different story.

He's one of the pioneers, has been influential and has built some of the most beautiful frames I've seen. But he didn't build all his own sh-t, and I feel like I have to call out bullsh-t when I see it.