Originally Posted by moxfyre
Sure, internal headsets make bikes look cleaner, but they suck for a ton of other reasons. Count me not in favor of them
I don't tink masiman was calling appearance the most important reason for cartridge BBs, merely a side benefit.
What's wrong with the splined BB tool? It's practically standardized among non-external bottom brackets, which is the part that *I* like best as a frugal hobbyist, because I don't have to buy a bunch of different tools. With cup-and-cone, I have a Park notched wrench that works with the adjustable cups on *most* Japanese stuff, but not on French or Italian BBs... and then there are some Japanese or English BBs which require something else like a pin spanner.
I have heard that internal headsets are hard to adjust. My bikes all have quill stems and threaded headsets but mainly I like the look of the newer headsets. I'd like to have at least one aheadset bike with an unthreaded fork for no other reason than to get some first hand experience with it.
The Shimano splined bottom bracket tool works great on my square taper Shimano cartridge unit as well as my splined 7703 Dura Ace octalink unit. I have encountered some non-standardization on some cartridge bb's that I worked on though, such as the inexpensive ones that use a black nylon adjustable splined cup. I worked on couple of these and the splines were a slightly different dimension.
Also, I have found that there is a trick to precisely installing cartridge bb's with the splined tool. I use a 3/8" drive mechanics T-bar with a 32mm socket on my Shimano TL-UN52. The bike needs to be out of the stand or else VERY securely mounted in it. Probably better to reach over the top tube with your body and keep steady pressure on the T-bar (or breaker bar) as you loosen the cartridge unit.