“That’s when they were trying to make bikes look a lot like motorcycles and race cars,” says Craig Morrow, whose collection of Krates hangs upside down in neat rows along the museum’s ceiling and nearly crowds him out of his office.

Mr. Morrow, 57, of Ben Avon, a former auto body painter, claims thousands of bicycles ready for display — in fact, he said his place boasts 90,000 bikes and accessories. He’s been collecting and repairing bicycles for decades — he even became celebrated locally for a shop that was, essentially, in the alley outside his former home. But this is the first time his acquisitions will all be in one place.

Bicycle Heaven, in the R.J. Casey Industrial Park (near the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild on Metropolitan Street), hardly resembles a traditional museum, apart from the glass cases ready for smaller items, such as vintage head badges (the curved metal nameplates on the front of many bikes) and 150 years of design evolution in lights, tools, pedals, seats and mirrors.