Originally Posted by
Papa Tom
While we are on this subject, a few years ago, I cleaned out an old bike shop and brought home about two dozen different lockring bits, all different shapes and sizes. Only two or three fit my wheels and my bottom bracket, but I don't want to toss the rest. Is there basically one size lockring in use these days, or are there still many?
You probably have several tools from the freewheel cluster era, I have a couple Suntour tools, at least one Regina cluster tool, but I think I lack the Normandy cluster tool if I recall correctly. I might have one or two others that I picked up at garage sales, but never had a cluster to mate with it.
Sram and Shimano 8 and 9 speed cassettes (and probably several others) use a common tool. I bought one that served my needs for several years, but it did not work on a Sram Dual Drive hub on my foldup bike so I had to buy a second cassette tool that works on the same cassettes, but also will fit on that hub.
I am not going to comment on bottom brackets, I have standardized on two tools for my current fleet (one a Shimano type and one Campy), I try to make sure that I do not buy any bikes or bottom brackets that go beyond those two tools.