In CMAG's museum setting the characterful bicycles from Canberran Peter Taylor's collection suddenly take on the character of works of art. Yes they are machines, but in their gleaming, minimalist, sleekness and slenderness they seem as much sculpted as just put together.

Bicycle admirers at Wednesday's official opening of Velocity: vintage racing bikes included the French Ambassador to Australia, His Excellency Christophe Lecourtier. The official opening was done by new government minister Gordon Ramsay. He has a bewildering array of portfolio hats but on Wednesday was there as Minister for the Arts and Community Events.

When he was 16 Peter Taylor became a member of the Canberra and Queanbeyan Cycling Club. He soon developed an awareness of the differences between the rather average Australian-made bicycles and the most sophisticated ones imported from France and from Italy. Today, still immersed in cycling, he is a freelance bicycle builder and mechanic working from his Chifley home.

"Why do I collect bicycles? I was afraid you'd ask me that. That's the question I dread the most," he gasped to this reporter, horrified by my forensic, Leigh Sales' approach to interviewing him.

"I think I like the way they look. I like working on them mechanically, I love the mechanics of them. And I enjoy bringing them back to the best possible condition."

"But isn't it a bit like collecting works of art? After all they're very beautiful," I probed further, sensing I had my nervous interviewee on the ropes now.

"I suppose I think of them more as works of craft. They have artistic elements I suppose. They're very elegant, with very beautiful shapes," he mused, anxiously.

He has between 80 and 90 of them and so the little room in CMAG only has room for the crown jewels of them for this display. For the Canberra Times he posed with one of his favourites, a sky blue and golden Gitane Team professional, made in France in 1964.

One of the older bicycles on show, given added character by scuffs and scratches earned during its illustrious racing career, is a 1956 Bold'or. Joe Tait of Bexley in NSW built it for rider Frank Brazier and Brazier rode it on tracks (in a Velodrome) at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. It is one of the several bicycles in the display one wishes could be induced to talk (perhaps the fearsome Leigh Sales could make that happen) given the stories it could tell.

As reported Peter Taylor is very self-conscious about the eccentricity of his choice of what to collect but he might have taken heart a little later from minister Ramsay's speech, containing as it did a collector's True Confession.

"One of the important ways CMAG tells its stores about us is by showcasing collections held across our community. There is something revealing about us as individuals when we think of what it is we collect. A collection we have in our household is of LEGO mini-figures. And in our various collections, whether they're as insignificant as our LEGO mini-figures or as significant as this bike collection, we make connections with people. They are insights into us."