I own a house at the beach, 200 yards from the ocean. In fact I'm at the beach now because the guts of the AC electrical disconnect box corroded and I need to install a new one. Last year, I had to put a new roof on because the heads of the galvanized nails were rusted away, so any strong wind blew shingles off the roof. Three years ago the aluminum fins and the exterior steel of the AC condensing unit finally disintegrated into a pile of dust. Point is, near the ocean most materials, and pretty much all metals (except marine grade stainless) will go back to nature very quickly. If the salt air doesn't get them the intense sun will. Vinyl, wood, metal, etc doesn't matter.

Pic below taken a few minutes ago of my parking spot in the salt air, and yes the chrome will take a hit being at the beach. But, besides polishing my chrome I also find time to ride. By the time I get home tomorrow night I'll have ridden 840 miles in the last week.

OK, back on topic, I much prefer chrome but I've seen some blacked out bikes that I really like. One example is the new "Apex" paint schemes from the MoCo with blacked out exhaust etc.. Don't think I would pay the price for one, but they look sharp.


Salt air doing it's thing.

 

I too am a chrome ***** I love spending hrs waxing & polishing and stand back at awww. I put every chrome cover parts on her. Only drawback it takes longer to take her apart to replace anything.😎

 

Lazy. It takes effort to keep it looking good. Same reason I buy a white car and not a black one.

 

Nothing wrong with it, I am just bored with cleaning it. I put Harvard chromed billet wheels on my last HD, and man those were a bitch to keep looking good!

Black looks like **** when it's dirty, too. So far it's just easier to maintain. Who knows, I may go back to it on the next bike.

I am actually lusting over a set of those bronze wheels that come on the STs...

 

Ive always been a chrome guy. My old evo heritage is loaded. I think I had about every piece I could think of on my 06 ultra. However I ended up buying a low mileage 15 ultra at a good deal that the po had spent alot of time blacking it out. First thing I told my wife was, “all that black crap has got to go.” Then the more I look at it and ride it, its growing on me, and Ive had alot of compliments on it. Its much easier to keep looking good imo., So for now, Im leaving it, but who knows what I’ll end up doing.

 

Throwing my hat into the ring. My Glide has more chrome than the Deuce.

 

Some people like chrome, others don’t.
Some people like cauliflower, others don’t.
Some people believe in bigfoot, others don’t.
I could do this all day!
”You do you” is the new “to each his own”. (I’m surprised I even know that one.)

 

It really depends on the bike. Lately, I've been really liking chrome. I think I'm getting tired of seeing the new Softail line consisting of mainly Lowriders with wrinkle black (rhino liner) parts.

Softails use to be the low lean mean stretched 32 degree rake chromed out hard tail looking customs.Now they have fallen to the Dyna Bro crowd wanna be stunt bike riders who like black parts so there's less cleaning. Nothing wrong with Dynas or actual real stunt bike riders by the way but the 2 styles (Soft tail) (Dyna) should be separate. Harley doing away with the Dyna was the worst thing for Softails. Best Softail styling IMO was the Twin Cam days.

I do like the gloss black parts better that come on the Baggers. It looks much better then wrinkle black. But after awhile it start to show swirls pretty bad. At least my 2018 Road King Special did anyway. I also like bikes that are half and half if done correctly.​​​​​​​

 

 

Old farts (like me) generally like chrome.... I'm planning on chrome-izing my RK this winter.. I installed some chrome covers for the passenger floorboards just before I put it away.

I have my Harley parts wish list made up and will be installing various chrome bits over the winter. She'll be sparkling when I get back on the road in the spring