With the components I use, the modern kit needs not so much "component specific tools" but "different specific tools".
If you compare todays bikes ,and the special tools needed, to bikes from... oh, let's say 30 years ago...
Let's start with the two biggest changes in tools I have noticed: the chainsets and bottom brackets.
30 years ago, the high end chainsets were cotterless cranks. These took a special tool to press them off of the bottom bracket spindle. To complicate matters, for a long time Campagnolo took a different tool than any of the others. This has since been corrected.
Today, the crank arms are still pulled off of the spindle with a special tool. It is just a different one than before. Add to this that you only need to pull one arm off now, making things easier.
Hmm, it seems that chainsets actually became easier to deal with!
30 yeara ago, bottom brackets were much harder to deal with than they are today. Back then you had dozens of manufacturers, with several types of tools needed to install and remove the botton brackets. In addition to the tools of various shapes and sizes needed to controll the adjustable cup, and the lock ring, you also had to deal with the fixed cup, which had various sizes, was often siezed up, or had been deformed before by people using the wrong tool on it. Add to this the fact that the surfaces that had to be used were only about 2 to 3mm wide. Not a lot of surface at all to exert the kind of torque needes to hold it in place, let alone break it free when needed. There was a place where a number of specialised tools were needed!
Today you have a socket that drives the cups into position. No muss, no fuss.
Let's add a third item: headsets.
30 years ago, you had to find a headset that exactly matched the fork, press the cups into place, and you still had to have several tools to hold the often very thin nuts in place while you tightened the lock nut onto them.
Today, while you still have to press in the cups (as you always have had to), you now have bearimg cartridges that can use a split lower cone so that one size headset will fit a large number of bikes. Oh, and the adjustment of these headsets is managed with one <(or maybe two) simple hex wrenches... much easier, and much more precise.
Have I missed something that has become harder about modern bikes?
If you compare todays bikes ,and the special tools needed, to bikes from... oh, let's say 30 years ago...
Let's start with the two biggest changes in tools I have noticed: the chainsets and bottom brackets.
30 years ago, the high end chainsets were cotterless cranks. These took a special tool to press them off of the bottom bracket spindle. To complicate matters, for a long time Campagnolo took a different tool than any of the others. This has since been corrected.
Today, the crank arms are still pulled off of the spindle with a special tool. It is just a different one than before. Add to this that you only need to pull one arm off now, making things easier.
Hmm, it seems that chainsets actually became easier to deal with!
30 yeara ago, bottom brackets were much harder to deal with than they are today. Back then you had dozens of manufacturers, with several types of tools needed to install and remove the botton brackets. In addition to the tools of various shapes and sizes needed to controll the adjustable cup, and the lock ring, you also had to deal with the fixed cup, which had various sizes, was often siezed up, or had been deformed before by people using the wrong tool on it. Add to this the fact that the surfaces that had to be used were only about 2 to 3mm wide. Not a lot of surface at all to exert the kind of torque needes to hold it in place, let alone break it free when needed. There was a place where a number of specialised tools were needed!
Today you have a socket that drives the cups into position. No muss, no fuss.
Let's add a third item: headsets.
30 years ago, you had to find a headset that exactly matched the fork, press the cups into place, and you still had to have several tools to hold the often very thin nuts in place while you tightened the lock nut onto them.
Today, while you still have to press in the cups (as you always have had to), you now have bearimg cartridges that can use a split lower cone so that one size headset will fit a large number of bikes. Oh, and the adjustment of these headsets is managed with one <(or maybe two) simple hex wrenches... much easier, and much more precise.
Have I missed something that has become harder about modern bikes?