Pioneer Metal Finishing is headquartered in Green Bay, WI., with locations across the country, It turns out that Pioneer is the largest anodizer in the USA, based right here in Wisconsin.

Anodizing is a process most people have never heard of. When applied by Pioneer, I think it looks incredible. Anodizing is a chemical process that works on the surface of aluminum. It does not work on steel. It boils down to dye being placed in the pores of the aluminum object's surface after the pure aluminum molecules on the surface are literally "swapped out" and replaced with molecules of aluminum oxide. Once the dye is in the pores of the aluminum oxide, the surface is then sealed. It gets more technical than that.

What makes this process so neat is that the surface shines through the color. Anodizing is transparent. Paint is opaque. So if you have a highly polished aluminum surface and you anodize it, you can still see the polished surface. It looks great, the effect is incredible. The Sport Legend bike and the Bucky bike both feature aluminum rims that have been anodized by Pioneer.

Here is Pioneer Metal Finishing's website. The "Metal Effects" that they offer are fabulous.