I saw a pretty trick picture of a guy who machined his own inserts out of aluminum to replace the steel ones. Are there any available for sale anywhere? Or is there a hardware store trick I can pull?

How much weight do you honestly need to save? I prefer the strength of steel to support the pleg.

Do you run steel rims? Steel stem?

I am not sure this is a strength issue, I thought it was a cost issue? For how cool the plegs are they are a very low price of admission. I wouldn't expect to get aluminum machining for as little as I paid for the plegs.

you don't bash your rims or stem against steel coping or concrete ledges.

Neither do you bash the steel insert of a pleg against ledges

Still puts alot of stress on it, i would rather the confidence that steel wont bend and cause the peg to give out or bend upwards and cause serious injury....or death!!!!!!!1

I'm with you there if that's really an issue

Usually when considering materials for a product, we generally follow the principle that:

If its more likely to bend than snap, use aluminum

If its more likely to snap than bend, use steel

I am gut feeling, with no actual evidence to back me up, that the weak spot here is going to be the plastic itself and not the insert. I could be very wrong, and would love to be pointed to anectdotes showing how plegs have failed. I did read where someone tried to make just a washer and a collar and snapped the pleg at the mating end

Yeah im not even sure if it would break either, but seriously the weight saving isnt worth the hassle.

If I'm doing the math right, its saving a bit over 10 oz. That's more than most weight recipies I've seen people do, certainly better than a titanium spindle on your crank or axle

Doh, you were right, I was WAY off. Maybe, MAYBE 2 oz could be saved, if even that. Next time I'll wait till I have an actual postal scale before I run my mouth

Haha, yeah i was like i dont think the steel collars were THAT heavy haha