wow - what's with the 'tude guys? as far as the "street cred" and such, if you guys want to pose as cool urban hipsters go ahead, thats cool, no need to bust on the OP though.

The Moto, Mercier, Windsor stuff all has a pretty thin clear coat. I've seen another person who successfully removed the decals. It was more trouble than it was worth for me, but it can be done. I think he simply used a dull edge metal implement of some kind and gently worked at the edge of the decal until he could pry up the edge enough to get a hold of. Then he just simply peeled it off very slowly. He applied a simple spray on clear coat afterwards to even it out. He said using something with sharp edges didn't work very well - not sure why. BTW - the single speed/fixed Mercier does look pretty cool. Some black velocity Deep V rims laced with black spokes to black hubs (IRO maybe? Chris King if you wanna spend some $$$) would be a pretty bomb proof wheel that would look pretty sharp too.

Also, you might want to apply frame saver to the frame to help protect it from rust.

"street cred" is a viable commodity that can be exchanged for goods and services.