What did I use in the shoulder straps? Well at first I was going to use socks and stuffb but that sucked - so I ended up using 1/4" minicell. And in retrospect it would have been alot easier to have done that off the get go. Live and learn. I would love to get some of that stuff that Golite is using for their shoulder straps. It is very comfortable and looks like it would be easy to work with.