Jace Cundiff, 33, of Santa Fe, New Mexico, finished fourth in Mens Pro at Northwest Electric Fest 2026 with a combined time of 10:36.700, missing the podium by 1.4 seconds. It was the first race of his life and the first event he had ever attended. He has been riding electric unicycles for about a year and three months, came to the sport from Onewheels, and races a Nosfet Apex. The event ran July 16 to 19 at Havenroot in Veneta, Oregon, sanctioned by USA EUC, the national sanctioning body for electric unicycle racing.
What Happened in Jace Cundiff's First Race?
He led his eventual podium rival after day one and lost the place on day two. Cundiff was ahead of Justin Davis by a single second after the downhill run, then watched Davis take it back on the uphill by 1.4 seconds across the combined time. The full division order is in the Northwest Electric Fest 2026 EUC recap.
This is the wildest ride of my life by far. Like, I never pushed it that hard, and I've never ridden with people who are that insane.
Jace Cundiff pushing for the finish on heat 2 at NW Electric Fest - Photo by Seth Johnson (USA EUC).
He traveled from New Mexico with Corwin Koller, who finished eighth in the same division. Cundiff says fourth stung, and in the same breath that the weekend gave him something bigger than a placing: "I can't tell you how many times I crashed, just trying to practice, and it gave me so much hope for this sport."
Part of that was seeing what the front of the field looks like up close. He describes Joshua Fagerness and Zac Darnell, first and second, as riders with superpowers, and himself as the one who has to catch up.
What Cost Cundiff the Podium?
His pads, repeatedly. Cundiff lost time to equipment failure on the second day, in the heat that decided the order.
my pads blew off through my first heat of the second day four times, and I was like 20 seconds slower than I should have been because my pads broke
What he remembers about it is not the lost time but the response. He borrowed a set, then another set, then finally got hold of a pair of turbo pads. Douglas Marshall, who finished fifth in the same division, was among the riders who handed him equipment mid-event, and Cundiff, who arrived expecting a race, found something closer to a pit crew: "everyone was willing to just be like, you know, get me up there. They're like, you're fast, man. You can, here, take my stuff, try again."
He says he did not expect the sport to work that way, and that the support was what surprised him most about the weekend.
Why Does Jace Cundiff Ride a Nosfet Apex?
Jace Cundiff catching air in the qualifications at NW Electric Fest - Photo by Seth Johnson (USA EUC).
He says because someone kept beating him on one. Cundiff came to electric unicycles from Onewheels, and by his account the switch was less a decision than a campaign waged against him by another rider, Dawood at Wood Monster, who kept showing up on a V14 and smoking him while he was still on his Onewheel. He gave in and bought the Apex.
His read on the wheel after his first race is specific and two-sided. In the open, he says, "I really realize how awesome the Apex is in the wide open," crediting its high-end torque and its ability to absorb trail chatter at speed on straights and wide double track.
The tradeoff shows up in the tight stuff. Against a KingSong F18, he says, the Apex sits high and is a little top heavy, which makes it harder to throw around at slow speeds, and the short technical sections were what surprised him most about the level of the field: right angles, stumps, roots, pedals clipping. That is also where Fagerness beat him in a slalom race, the two of them yelling at each other the whole way down, with Fagerness catching back up and crossing the line ahead of him at the last second.
What Did Cundiff Learn From His Crash?
Chasing Zac Darnell on the course, Cundiff caught a bump coming out of a turn, got into speed wobbles, and hit a dip. He said that helped him learn where his limit is, at speed.
I come around that one turn where there's like this little bump, and I get the wobbles, and then hit one of those dips, and I tomahawked at 35 miles an hour
The wheel finished thirty feet up the hill from where he did. "I have tire marks on the back of my helmet from where it tomahawked over me," he said.
He is clear-eyed about the cause, and it is the same thing he identifies as the biggest gap in his racing. He knows he has the skill and a wheel capable of running with the front of the field, and he says the hardest part is that he gets in his own way. Going all out is easy. Going at 80 percent, or 75 when the trail has been chewed up by four days of racing and a rider is tired or hurt, is the part he says he has to learn.
Why Does Cundiff Ride Every Day?
Because the wheel replaced most of the rest of his life outside of work. Cundiff rides to work, rides for his mental and physical health, and says he does not do anything in a car anymore. He calls it "the ultimate freedom machine."
He has stopped going to the gym and stopped buying a ski pass, on the grounds that he would rather ride year round than wait in a lift line. The wheel, as he describes it, is not a toy: it is the motorcycle and the pair of skis at the same time.
Why Has Cundiff Turned Down Sponsors?
Several companies have approached him, and the terms are what he objects to.
people have reached out to me and said, here's our script and here's what you can't say. And I said, no thanks.
He says he prefers editorial freedom and honesty, and points to his YouTube channel as the reason. The exception he draws is Jack at Nosfet, who sends him parts and a wheel with no script and no expectations attached. Cundiff is careful to say that is not a sponsorship, and calls the arrangement a rare thing: "I like what you're doing. Here you go. No expectations. Do your thing."
What Is Jace Cundiff's Advice to Prepare First Your First Race?
Jace Cundiff racing for the finish in the finals at NW Electric Fest on his Nosfet Apex - Photo by Seth Johnson (USA EUC).
Train past comfortable, and find someone faster than you.
If you want to be fast, man, just train as hard as you can until your body gives up as often as you can. Go as hard as you can and find somebody that's going to push you.
The second half is the part he stresses. Riding with someone better than you, or at least equal to you, is what supplies the incentive to train at all, and where he comes from there were only a couple of people who could push him.
For race day itself his advice runs the other way, toward calming down. Whether it is your first run or your fiftieth, he says, the job is to trick your brain into believing it is just another ride with friends.
Cundiff says he plans to race Amped Electric Games 2026, the season finale in Bentonville, Arkansas, running October 1 to 4 with championship racing on October 3 and 4, and to spend the time before it training berms and jumps, around a job, a wife and a two-year-old. He posts under his own name, Jace Cundiff, on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.
Interviewed at Northwest Electric Fest 2026, Veneta, Oregon, July 22, 2026.
