why?

replace that junk thin plate .. part w/ a good top triple tree brace

there are 4-5 places as well as ebay to find a replacement top clamp

I would like to keep the bike stock. I know many complain about the factory top clamp, but it has always served us well enough on both our /6 and /5. I did shop around for a replacement a little bit and was intrigued by the one available at Oshmo, due to the stock look. Then I realized that it is stainless which has only 60% of the yield strength of steel. By my reasoning, this actually makes it weaker than the original even though it is slightly thicker. Are there other options which retain the stock look of the original?

For now, I confirmed for myself that it was not hard chrome, since I was able to scratch it with a scribe point. I had it stripped and hard chrome plated which is much more resistant to wear and, in my opinion, looks better too. Here is how it turned out; I think it looks great. A little shinier than the original but not as shiny as decorative chrome.

Can someone tell me what BMW used to plate their top triple clamps? I saw some reconditioned ones on Ebay and the seller states that they have been re-plated with cadmium as manufactured.

Can't answer your direct question, but I can tell you cadmium is the best weather protection plating you can get. However, the EPA has designated it as dangerous, so plating 1 or 2 pieces is prohibitive. So I highly doubt your EBay pal had these cad plated unless he did 20.

Nickel and electro-less nickel look an awful lot like cad and offer pretty good protection. The most common plating these days is "bright zinc", which without the yellow chromate, is fairly poor. You don't want that.

Maybe the way to go is common chrome plating and tell the plater NOT to buff to the finished part. OR, if lookin close but providing excellent protection... one of the chrome look-alike powder coatings. Some of those are amazing.

The original handle bar risers (clamps) on a /5 are polished billet aluminum.