Chrome, Yo! Only For the (wannabe) Parking Lot Pimps if you haven't already noticed, chrome is a little out of style.  Waiting months on end to have your wheels and other parts come back from places like SportChrome, or Santa Ana is kind of wack too.  Last year, we sent out a customer's gixxer parts to SportChrome.  While they were misc parts, they were the shit that held his bike together.  They lost the parts, and have since refused to send a replacement.  It's been since February of 04.   They're not coming. Now, we have a similar problem.  Chris carter's parts have been at Santa Ana plating for months now.  We had to have the wheels returned because after having them for over two months, they still hadn't even stripped the factory coating.  Now they're saying that it's going to be another 2 weeks or more.  Why wait for this bullshit?   Just so your parts can shine? In case you haven't noticed, the latest issues of mags like 2 Wheel Tuner aren't featuring as many bikes with everything all chromed and shiny.  The frames are powdercoated with a translucent Kandy red, swingarms are powdercoated to match a color scheme in the paint.  a lot more planning, style and imagination are going into these bikes.  Why make your bike look like everyone else?  If you're spending the money, why not do something with it to set yourself apart? We ride our bikes, we don't sit around and profile.  That's for the heads that can't ride.  No one bothers to notice when we're running the bridge at 150 that my rims are chrome.  No one cares at this point either.  It's been seen over and over again.  They notice my paint, my frame is the wrong color, they notice the billet aluminum parts contrasting against the paint that haven't been stripped of their bright dip. Chrome is a waste of time and money.  Chris could have been riding his bike months ago if we had just polished it.  Sure polish takes a little more work to keep clean, but is it worth not having the bike to ride it for months on end when the rest of your crew is out?  Karl's frame is hanging after just being powdercoated, and it ties into the scheme and paint job on his bike.  And it's hot.