I don't know about you lot, but for me choosing a colour scheme for a bike is always the hardest decision to make during any project. It's just that as technology advances, more and more options open themselves up to any bike builder - so much so that what should be a fairly simple choice becomes almost impossible. Take powder coating for example. Not so long ago the only choice you had to make was which of the handful of plain colours you wanted your frame and/or wheels to be. Now, not only do you have the myriad of shades that have been available with paint for years, but you can now choose between solid, metallic and pearl finishes, too. But what makes it worse is that there are now even more shades available to the painter, so any unusual colour choice in one area will seriously affect the colour choice of something else. For a poor, easily confused hippie with no colour co-ordination at all, the huge variety of options simply snowballs into one enormous headache - what to choose ... For reasons not even known by my good self, rather than plate the frame, the preferred route Lee from Steelheart wanted to take, I went for a beautiful blue pearl instead. And why pearl? Because it changes hue as the light hits it. But who should I trust with such an outrageous, unusual frame... Around two years ago a set of powder coated yokes turned up at the BSH offices. Nothing strange there as bits turn-up all the time - normally stuff we'd lost years previously - nor did the powder coating particularly stand out as something special as the yokes themselves had certainly seen better days before they were covered. Then, two years later, I'm at Big 4 and Dave Manning's newly coated wheels are there, glinting perfectly under the oil covered strip lights, looking absolutely stunning. It turns out that both the yokes and Dave's wheels were done by the same firm - Bournes Powder Coaters. The best bit of all though was just how cheap Bournes' work is. For a frame, two wheels and swing arm in any pearl colour, you're looking at a paltry £81, which includes blasting. Now that's a bargain in anyone's book. Quality is the name of the game where Bournes are concerned, too. Once the part has been blasted, they then set to it with sand paper, just to make sure the surface is perfectly smooth so that the final finish doesn't have that slight orange peel effect most powder coating has. After sanding, the parts are then put into the oven to heat the metal, again to reduce further any chance of an imperfect finish. Next they coat the components with a silver base, for the pearl, before re-baking them which is then followed by the final colour coating which is again baked. Because I was in a mad rush, Bournes did the entire bike in four hours flat - now, that's what I call service - yet the finish is still perfect and achingly gorgeous. If you want anything powder coated, Bournes really are the first people to check out. The one mistake I made with the powder coating though, other than using a local firm to do the black bits which simply don't have Bournes' perfection, was not choosing a different colour for the wheels. Because of this, the bodywork, which was also to be blue, had to be done in such a way as to not make the bike too blue. Not an easy job that was made even more difficult thanks to the bodywork being slightly off-centre. For some reason when the mould was originally made, for Chris Richards' own Katana drag bike some of you may remember from back in the days of the Ultimate Streetbike Challenge, it somehow twisted itself so that everything was slightly out of line. Not a problem on a bike built purely for racing, but a little irritating in this case. Still, if it hadn't been for Chris, of Chris Richards Motorcycles in Sheffield, I would've ended up spending unbelievable amounts of cash on bodywork made in the States, so thanks Chris. Only one person was up to the challenge of disguising the slight imperfections while still producing a stunning paint job. Take one step forward Geoff Ridgeway. A man who made his name painting the most outrageous hot rods many moons ago. The original idea was to use stripes along the body to accentuate its length, but this had to be scrapped when we discovered all it accentuated were the imperfections. Time for a cup of coffee and a cigarette. 'Okay' said Geoff, 'time to get the masking tape out and just see what happens...' Two hours later and the bodywork is covered in masking tape. Trying to follow Geoff's train of thought was basically impossible, so as I watched him work the final design still remained a mystery to me. As with most of Geoff's work, he just can't stop himself fading one colour into another which I always thought was a really difficult thing to do. Watching Geoff beavering away, it's actually really simple - at least it is after all the years Goeff's been doing it. The one thing I really wanted on the bike was a marbled effect under the main colour. Again I thought this was also incredibly difficult to achieve, but again the basic process is very simple. All you do is spray the bike using a mix of pearl, water based glue and few other ingredients Geoff refused to divulge. I have a sneaking suspicion the other material is white emulsion paint, but as to how it's mixed... Once the bodywork is covered in the marble paint mix, you then cover it with cling film. It's this that gives you the marble effect itself. Any areas that don't quite have the desired look are then dabbed using screwed up cling film. All you have to do then is spray a light coat of whatever coloured paint you want to use over the top and viola, an amazing looking paint job. Of course, it really isn't that easy, but then how do you describe twenty odd years experience? If Geoff had made it look difficult then I'd have worried as only those who don't really know what they're doing make things look hard. All that was left to do then was place the sponsors logos on the bike. There are still a couple of companies whose names have to be put on yet, but the bike now has that all important look of sheer aggression a drag bike should have. If it doesn't look like it'll tear your throat out, murder your parents, rape your kids and eat your pets just for looking at it, then there's something wrong.