Originally Posted by
Stan Heinricher
Manufacturers of the components that make a bare frame a bicycle, keep devising new tools to work on the new components. If you keep modernizing your components, you'll end up with a chest of tools. I have found it prudent to maintain my 1978 steel road frame myself using old tools that fit the old parts. Cheaper that way.
This holds true with cars, refrigerators, microwaves, phones, air conditioners, computers, and really most everything else in life.
Do you also grab your TV dinner from your ice box and place it in your 40 year old dial microwave before sitting down to eat and watching one of 5 channels on your 20" tube TV?
I love old components and have drawers full of em. I love old frames and have owned a few dozen of them thru the years while currently owning 4.
They are simple to work on and that is part of why I enjoy them.
Your complain about new standards is just absurd though.
1- it assumes the technology and processes of 40+ years ago were the best.
2- it is hardly specific to cycling.
3- even 40+ years ago there were multiple standards for headsets(ISO or JIS), bottom brackets(Italian or BSA), handlebars(25.4 or 26.0), seatposts, wheels(27" or 700), cranks(cottered, anyone?), etc etc. Those varied standards required a lot of tools.