All,
I love bikes, especially beautiful classical bikes. It is in fact one of my three perversions. I am also by profession a museum worker and to keep myself sane I don´t collect as a private person, period. That doesn´t mean that I don´t try to live with things I like!
Most things - almost every - in a museum collection was made to use, in fact most of them _are_used. Still they are collected and not touched except with cotton gloves. Why?
Because they have a content, they tell something important. What they tell may be very diverse; about life in older times, about mportant persons, about artisanery and many other things. Sometimes we collect things because they are representative, sometimes because they are unique!
Thus it is a pity not to use very nice products that were made to use, and I think it is right also for a person of scarce means to chose some things of high value in areas that are important to him and live with them, and use them. In fact I think you should do so!
But as time goes and some items become rarer things change, no matter what views their makers had. In the end there are so few that they should be collected and not used anymore in order to preserve what they say about their makers and their skills.
There are still a fair number of NOS Campagnolo or SunTour items out there. Use them and be happy, I do. But soon those that are left shouldn´t really be used any more and exactly when that day comes I don´t know. But it is good that some persons - and I hope some museums - keep unblemished examples in collections for what they will tell people ten generations further on.
Rant over, keep riding.
Olof Stroh
Uppsala Sweden