steelbikeguy

I'd be interested in hearing a bit more about that.

I was up in Ames visiting a friend and stopped in at one of the shops (not Micheals or Nims...) and mentioned that I was looking around for something to replace my well used Raleigh Gran Sport. It had a habit of shimmying on downhills, so I was looking for something more solid. The shop owner happened to have a frame built by Gordon B. and sent one of the staff to his home to fetch it. He let me do a quick test ride, and it was solid! Gordon was fond of using a large downtube to get rid of any flex (and it might have been a heavier gauge too). As you probably know, tandems were Gordon's main focus, which meant that he was used to tinkering with large tubes.

The shop owner gave me Gordon's contact info, I talked to him, visited and got fitted, and ended up with the frame shown in my post. This was in 1989, and the frame was his 33rd single frame. Not sure how many tandems he built.
In retrospect... the shimmy issue could probably have been solved in a different way. Oh well.
This frame has about 55,000 miles on it now and is still fine.

Gordon's work was largely taken over by Dave Huff. Dave did repaint my frame about 10 years ago, as well as spread the rear end from 126 to 130, and do a little work to provide more tire clearance under the fork.
edit: Dave also fixed the seat post binder ears that were bending inwards. That was an issue from the early days of the frame.
I think Gordon got into model trains, which seems perfect for a retired mechanical engineer.

Steve in Peoria