Jeff Dynia is a 69-year-old electric unicycle racer from East Granby, Connecticut, who took up EUC riding around 2023 after watching a fellow whitewater boater use one to shuttle a kayak. He is a lifelong whitewater kayaker, canoeist, and stand-up boarder, and in his younger years boxed on the same 1983 New England Golden Gloves card as a 16-year-old Mike Tyson. He competes under USA EUC, the national sanctioning body for electric unicycle racing, riding a Leaperkim Lynx. His first race was Wheel Life Rally 2026 in Southwick, Massachusetts, where he finished second in Mens Amateur EUC Enduro and third in Mens Amateur EUC Off-Road.
Dynia racing for his first time at Wheel Life Rally X Amped Electric Games in 2026. Photo credit Seth Johnson (USA EUC).
Dynia had never raced EUC before he lined up at Wheel Life Rally. He credits the Camp Amped boot camp that ran ahead of the event with getting him there.
Boot camp was real cool with Brady, but after doing the track over and over again and hanging out with Emmett from Tennessee, the young stud, fourteen-year-old kid, who enlightened me and says, well, I'll just try to follow his skills.
From the Boxing Ring to the Whitewater
Dynia boxing at the Holyoke Boys Club in 1983. Photo provided by Dynia.
Dynia came to sports late by his own account, and came to most of them sideways. At 26 he took up amateur boxing, chasing a spot in the Golden Gloves. That path put him on a fight card in Holyoke, Massachusetts in 1983, sharing a bill with a 16-year-old heavyweight who was already drawing attention.
That's where I met Mike Tyson in the cellar at the gym there because he stayed secluded from everybody until it was time for him to fight. And he was 16 years old, and he was fighting heavyweight. I didn't know him personally, but he was on the same card because I was lighter weight. I would fight before he would come out.
Boxing, he said, is what led to everything after it. "That's where boxing got me into sports, and that's where it got me into kayaking. That's where it's got me into this EUC racing." He raced whitewater competitively for years, first tandem canoe with his brother, then kayak slalom on his own, the same discipline structure as the Olympic event. His USA EUC athlete handle, slalomracer007, comes from that background.
Learning to Ride in the Driveway
Dynia with his Inmotion V11 which he taught himself to ride as a way to transport his paddle boards and kayaks. Photo provided by Jeff Dynia.
Dynia is self-taught. With no one nearby who rode an EUC, he worked out the basics alone, using his own car as a training aid.
I utilized my car in my driveway because I didn't have a fence to hold on to, so I would go in circles around my car and leaning on it to a point where I didn't have to lean on it too much. And then when I reversed the other direction, I would have to lean on it again to understand the other side. And then I added another car in my driveway to a figure eight.
It took him three weeks to get comfortable with that much. Riding on the road, which he had to do to reach the trails he actually wanted to ride, was its own hurdle, since he still had to learn how to turn and stop. About six months into owning his first wheel, an InMotion V11, he joined a road ride with two more experienced riders, which he said was the first time the sport felt less frightening.
He has since moved up to a Leaperkim Lynx, a bigger, heavier off-road wheel with knobby tires. He said "the weight threw me off" at first, guessing the wheel at around eighty pounds, but the ride quality won him over: "the suspension is that's like a Cadillac now."
A Crash That Cost Him a Tendon
Riding is not without cost. Late last year, coming down a hill on a trail near his home, Dynia's pedal caught a root while his foot pads were set tight.
So when I hit it, this thing twisted. 180 real quick, and I got one leg out, couldn't get the other leg out, and then I fell onto my shoulder and whatnot.
He was two and a half miles from his car with a badly injured ankle. Pushing the wheel in front of him did not work, so he improvised.
I'm going to hang onto a tree. I'm going to get up on the left peg with my good leg, and I know I can put my right leg onto the peg, and I just won't put a lot of force on it.
He made it back to his car on one leg and went to an ambulatory care center the next day, where doctors found a ruptured tendon. He spent two months off the wheel. The crash reset how he thinks about foot pad tension, a subject he was still working through in the boot camp at Wheel Life Rally, comparing notes with Seth Johnson on how much space to leave for a foot to escape.
Riding for the Back, Not Just the Race
Dynia's interest in EUCs was never only about racing. He has an unresolved sciatica issue, one doctors have not pinpointed the source of, though he suspects it traces to the L4-5 level of his spine. Riding, he said, has helped more than doctors have been able to explain.
All I do know is by riding the EUC, especially with the bigger bike, the Lynx that I have, which I use for racing, has introduced me to feeling healthy again and better understanding my body, and I think it has given me a lot of relief in this sciatic issue.
He also credited years of whitewater stand-up boarding with giving him a head start on the balance an EUC demands. For a rider who says he cannot hike long distances without his sciatic nerve flaring, the wheel has become a way to cover trail miles he otherwise could not.
What's Next
Dynia is weighing whether to make the trip to Camp Amped in Bentonville, Arkansas, USA EUC's more comprehensive multi-day coaching camp. Cost and travel are the open questions, not interest. He said as long as his health holds up, he plans to keep showing up to races. For now, that means finding a stretch of trail near his home in East Granby, timing himself, and trying to beat it the next time out.
Dynia's USA EUC athlete profile is listed at usaeuc.com/athletes/slalomracer007.
Results from official Wheel Life Rally 2026 timing, Southwick, Massachusetts, August 8, 2026. Full standings at usaeuc.com/standings.
