General: look at this shiiiiiiiiii!

Well, sure. I agree, the price is ridiculous (although I'm far more irritated by the $20 shipping, which I think is clearly in violation of eBay's excessive shipping charge policy). I wouldn't pay it.

But at the same time, who are we to denounce other peoples' elevation of oddball fetish objects? There's a lot of folks hereabouts rolling around the streets on superexpensive, heavy wheels - a purpose for which those wheels were not designed, and for which they are ill-equipped. But it's a free country, and people are permitted to piss their money away on silly stuff if they want.

The guy has sold several sets of oldie Velox plugs in the last month, in white and red; he's gotten $15-25 per set, 4 to 6.5 times what I have to pay for new black plugs. Maybe blue ones really are super-rare, and he may get $80 for them. Or he may be listing them over and over again. The price you pay for setting the bar too high...

If nothing else, I have now learned that Velox plugs used to come in different colors. If I could swap the black ones on my Bianchi out for blue or white, for under...maybe $20, I'd do it.

Posted By: hardsole5280Champagne corks are the coolest.

It depends. With leather tape, I can see it. Imagine an Alex Singer tourer, with honey leather bartape and Perrier-Jouet cork plugs. Très sportif!

But most expelled champagne corks are swelled from the moisture, so they're substantially larger than the handlebars. Whittling the corks down is a good way to find the limitations of the material. Maybe dehydrating them in a slow oven for awhile might help.