Give me a what what if you've ever floated in one of these.

[LAZARUS]

Damn stem left many marks on my stomach.

 

[JB in so cal]

Grads might like that model....

 

[Carlson-jet]

Don't remember the wheelbarrow version, but I do remember the semi truck tire tube.
They were usually well used from the road, full of patches, stinky and filthy at best even after hours on the water.
Kind of glad those days are gone and we have what we have today.
But ya, who could forget that smell. Lol

 

[monkeyswrench]

Pops was a cdl holder and in construction...and yes, us poor inlanders would make it down to Huntington a couple times a summer! As for floating on the river...my old rule was only head north, so when the boat broke I could float back

 

[oldschool]

Didn’t float in one of those but I’ve been sent space trucking from one of those.

 

[RiverDave]

Don't remember the wheelbarrow version, but I do remember the semi truck tire tube.
They were usually well used from the road, full of patches, stinky and filthy at best even after hours on the water.
Kind of glad those days are gone and we have what we have today.
But ya, who could forget that smell. Lol

LMAO!! So true.. and that god damn stem would poke you or scratch you all the time!

 

[BUDMAN]

What what. Floated many times down Parker and Blythe on those as a kid. My uncle had a semi trailer repair shop and my dad would always bring a bunch of them to the river. Boy did we think we was cool

 

[coolchange]

I was hi tech for a while. Some good times in those at the river. Don't see people floating anymore. Good way to die I guess.

 

[HydroSkreamin]

Make sure to put the stem down!

When we were finished with them we’d put one last patch on them, fill them with acetylene and oxygen, put rubber cement inside the inner ring, light it on fire and roll it down the hill ablazing. Big boom!

 

[4Waters]

Floated big river a couple of times in one of those, life was pretty easy going then.

 

[Ziggy]

Only on the snow hills did I use them. My older brother and I would fight for the one with the rubber valve stem.

 

[Sherpa]

my Dad had a friend at the truck tire shop in town. every summer Les would give me about 5-6 truck tubes... first thing I had to do was wash the crud off of all of them
before we could play with them....... we went Tubing in the creek every summer until we were older, then onto a bigger creek, then later when in high school onto the
river........ loved having inner tubes,!

--Sherpa

 

[lake p.a.l.]

I remember the tube rash we would get from the semi tubes. My brother & me put a towel over them then our parents & grandparents called us pussies.

 

[RodnJen]

We would wrap the ski rope around a couple times until you could grip the handles. My dad would tow us and whip the daylights out of us. Always had to make sure the stem was pointed down.

 

[4Waters]

I just showed this to my operator (old boater) and he said "I can still smell those tubes" LOL

 

[pronstar]

Tube floats are a huge thing here.

We went on one that was a 4-hour float, and at the end was a huge music festival with Weezer as the headliner.

It was held over 2 days, so you got to do the float twice.

It was awesome [emoji106]


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[Taboma]

We would wrap the ski rope around a couple times until you could grip the handles. My dad would tow us and whip the daylights out of us. Always had to make sure the stem was pointed down.

In Mid-Air at what felt like 200 MPH, defying gravity suspended two feet above the tube, in the middle of a whip, you watch the tube flip upside down and know your bare belly is going to land smack on that stem

I thought I'd killed my ole room mate after propelling him into the perfect whip behind the flatty one day, OMG I thought he'd never stop tumbling after the centrifugal force damn near pulled his fingers off Oddly, he never wanted to ride a tube ever again and I felt horrible ---- well, that is after I stopped laughing

 

[Moabifam5]

Spent many an afternoon floating down to Sundance in the late 70's in one of those. Bring back memories...

 

[Mototrig]

What What. A group of us floated down the Blackwater river in SUV size tubes when I was stationed in AL. Of course with a Honda Civic size holding the ice chest roped to my tube

 

[nameisbond]

I grew up in a house on the beach. My grand father retired from the CDN army in 74 or 75. He was a sergeant in the motor pool at a big base near here. He knew the guy who replaced him and that guy was in charge of the motor pool in the 80's. Being government they replaced the tires regardless of miles on all their vehicles on a monthly schedule. That guy gave us all the truck tubes we wanted.

 

[wzuber]

What what.....we used to luv tubing behind the boat. Too tired to ski? Lets go tubing. Always loved the whip speed bouncing n skippin. After a good bounce I landed with my knee pointed down inside and below the tube with foot above tube so water was hitting my lower thigh and had my leg trapped. I kept trying to pjll it out but couldn't. It hurt so bad. Additionally I was josteling around so much I couldn't let go of the handle to signal stop, slow down etc. I was fucked. Haha We finally hit a big enough wake to launch me out of it, i was sooo relieved happy. Had a good size bruise and limped about for a whle afterward but I still luved riding the tube.

 

[rrrr]

Tube floats are a huge thing here.

We went on one that was a 4-hour float, and at the end was a huge music festival with Weezer as the headliner.

It was held over 2 days, so you got to do the float twice.

It was awesome [emoji106]


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Was this on the Guadalupe River? That's a great float.

 

[nowski]

Tubing behind the boat in the seventies first started with a semi truck inner tube and evolved into what we have today. And yes those valve stems were a nuisance...

 

[Racer56]

When I was a student at ASU, we would go tubing down the Salt river all the time. You would park in a lot at the exit point and they had school buses take you up to the top. We would float for hours on end, such a good time.

 

[DWC]

What what. Tubing, floating in the pool and in the snow in big bear. Good times. Always in with at least a rash.

 

[HBCraig]

What what


And God forbid you are the first guy to lay on one if it was sitting idle in the sun for a while. Hotter than hell.

 

[74 spectra20 v-drive]

That is what tubing is all about! A coupe tubes behind the boat, ski ropes cinched around so you had the handles in the perfect spot and hold the hell on!

As a kid we always had friends of friends or friends of cousins coming to the river and my Dad's techniques of tossing people off the tubes were legendary. Young college guys almost challenging him to a duel and my very stoic father getting that little grin had all of us running to the boat to watch the certain chaos that was about to unfold. Many a young man floated back to camp wearing their life vest like a diaper because their shorts were no where to be found. The regulars all came to the rive prepared with cut off Levis and a belt just for tube rides.

It was F#$%in brutal and I am amazed that no one ever died, but my Dad was always sober, never drank, had too much fun other ways. I remember the terror as a kid riding on those tubes as they were no longer round but getting stretched as we hauled ass down the river, the looks we used to get from other boats as we were passing them and their skiers with a couple of tubes were priceless. Sitting in the back of the Sanger and seeing the OT's off that Boss 9 starting to steam and the wake disappear was a total rush for me!

The worst part... My sister and I usually got the job on Fridays to pull the ski ropes off the tubes, holy crap the ropes had been pulled on so hard all week it took forever to get those to slide apart. I had a great childhood !!!

 

[Ragged Edge]

Grew up going to the lower river near Yuma. We used the semi truck tubes tied to the boat, I was about 8 or 9 my older brother driving the boat thought it would be funny to whip me thru the reeds. I had small cuts just about everywhere and a lot of whip marks from the reeds. In the end it was worth it though because I got to watch the epic ass whooping my mom gave my brother after she finished patching me up.

 

[Timmmmmy]

When I was a student at ASU, we would go tubing down the Salt river all the time. You would park in a lot at the exit point and they had school buses take you up to the top. We would float for hours on end, such a good time.

Grew up in Phoenix. Spent many summers doing this float.

 

[Hondo-407]

Damn stem left many marks on my stomach.

View attachment 857015

I just realized if I survived being towed on the Parker Strip on one of these behind my dad's 69 Hondo flatty I gotta be immune from the Rona Virus...

 

[4Waters]

I just realized if I survived being towed on the Parker Strip on one of these ☝ behind my dad's 69 Hondo flatty I gotta be immune from the Rona Virus...

If you breathe in through your nose and can still smell the tube, you will be fine.

 

[Bullet28]

Many a time we used old tubes, floated in the creeks in the foothills east of Stockton. I remember just tying a old towel over the stem and off we went.

 

[johnnyC]

When we went tubing we used a tube off a tractor, could get 3 adults on it, on a wip we would be going so fast that when we be finally got bounced off a lot of times you would loose your trunks.... it was even better when the lady's rode they would always loose their tops .... good times the 70's

 

[lbhsbz]

Never floated on one, but got towed and throwed on one for years. It's still in our storage with the same 30 year old rope tied around it and hasn't lost air. Kids this days and their sissy tubes with handles.

 

[pronstar]

Was this on the Guadalupe River? That's a great float.

I’m 99% certain it was.
It was just outside of Austin.

It’s a lot of fun floating for hours with bazillions of other people...not a bathroom in sight...just like the Havasu Channel [emoji90][emoji1787]


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