I tend to think of a bicycle as magic. It gets me where I need to go, it doesn’t need insurance, registry, or city sticker. I can ALWAYS find parking for it. With patience I can get amazing examples of craftsmanship at blow your mind bargain prices.

When I ride I instantly become 11 years old. It’s 1989, my family gets together and watches Night Court and Star Trek TNG. My best friends Jared and Jason from up the street show up and we take our bikes down to the beach. I have a Schwinn cruiser, blue metal flake, balloon tires and hub brake. I’m totally jealous of Jason’s BMX that he’s spray painted day glow orange! We bum around, hopping curbs. We get to the beach and see how fast the off shore wind will push us in the empty parking lot.

Its ‘89, high school is 5 years away, TV ads don’t have web addresses yet, we don’t have a home PC but we might get one eventually. The BetaMax side at our rental store “Pappies Videos” is getting smaller. We all have a couple paper lift tickets on our winter jackets from a trip 2 years ago. Dad’s taken the sandbox out of the yard so the cats stop leaving presents in it. We play on a steel geodesic dome jungle gym that we’re getting to big for.

Wait I’m sorry, what was the question?
Bikes!!
I was going to say ride it! Always ride it! That’s what the original designer had in mind, and I bet whoever that is would be THRILLED to see there bike still shiny and riding around -blank- years later.

If that beautiful French machine we’re mine I’d clean it, take the rust off and stabilize the rest. And ride it. But that’s me. I like the beausage.

And being 11

and to the OP, any race bike of punishing gear ratio can be taken on a Sunday jaunt down to get a paper and a coffee, you can keep it original and still ride it. A race car from the ‘40s even with its original motor, couldn’t compete with a modern racing engine. That doesn’t mean it’s any less of a race car though.