What I decided to do was just rip off the old padding since it was in such terrible shape and put on the the handlebar tape, it looks much nicer now, but has no where near the cushion it had before. It doesn't matter to me since this bike is just a temporary thing, I can just change positions if I start getting sore. The old inner tubes sounds like a great idea if I had any I would have done that. My next thing on the list is to give my rims a once over with some steel wool.