I noticed the latest gitpod container uses npm 8 and node 16 which are not supported for BJS builds. So when trying to launch a new gitpod workspace which can take a long time there is eventually an error while building node-sass.
Downgrading to node 6 and node 14 with
$ npm install -g npm@6
$ nvm install 14
from the gitpod terminal seems to fix then running
$ npm install
$ npm start
to complete the setup.
Perhaps it would be possible to configure gitpod to use an older container ?
I have totally no idea about the gitpod config we are using, feel free to make a PR to change it if you find a config that works great 
Or even submit here and I ll do the PR
Since Gitpod is listed in contributing.md, and is supported with an existing gitpod.yml, I was hoping somebody more knowledgeable than me had a quick idea on how to set it up.
Let me post back if I can figure it out.
Autofix: upgrade-nvm-tools by autofix-bot · Pull Request #543 · gitpod-io/workspace-images · GitHub seems to be the underlying change in the container image. Just a note.
Would be amazing if you can figure it out
has a fix. It worked for me but would benefit from additional testing.