tools for old bikes and new

miater said:

looking for advice on a toolkit. I 've got an old 1987 bianchi road bike, a strada, it cost 400 bucks back then. I love the lugged steel frame, I want to restore it.

so I 'm ready to buy a toolkit, but man it gets confusing. so many different types of bottom bracket tools, freewheel tools

I want a kit that will help me with my old bike and my new.

any advice out there? thanks

I, too, love the old lugged steel frames. Bottom bracket tools really make you decide what is worthwhile. A lot of the old adjustable cup&cone types need three specific tools, or even more, to do the removals/installs/adjustments. While it's quaint to deal with this old stuff, I have found it makes a lot more sense to do a bit of modernization to your bike and install a new cartridge type BB. By doing this any investment you make in tools will be worthwhile for a long time. Investing in old style tools that you may only use a couple of times just does not make sense to me. I have done this and wished that I had been smart enough to go right to cartridge in the first place. If you go "new style" and use Shimano cartridge BBs, all you need for a tool is a 20_spline tool (eg. Park BBT-2 - can be had for <$15), and a big adjustable wrench to turn it (the bigger the better).

If your freewheel is a Shimano, all you need is a Park FR-1 ($7). You can find a bunch of other freewheel tools listed here:

http://www.parktool.com/repair/readhowto.asp?id=94

Most of them are $10, or less. They all can be turned with an adjustable wrench (just like the BB tool).

So, for about $20-25 you can get all the specific tools you need for your old Strada. Upgrade that BB to a new cartridge style and you will be good to go.
Good luck with that bike. I have an '83 Nishiki Century that I massively upgraded and I love it. A lot of those old frames really have a nice ride.