When Dave Stewart won the 2018 Onewheel Race For The Rail, no one saw it coming. He certainly wasn’t one of the favorites and, in fact, most of the riders had no idea who he was.
After carving through winter on a snowboard and snowskate (no bindings!) in Lake Tahoe, he saw a video of Onewheel riders in the summer that surprised him. They were taking their boards up a chairlift and then riding down the slopes. He immediately pulled the trigger on a Onewheel Plus and began riding up lifts himself at local Tahoe ski resorts. One year later, he was spraying champagne on the crowd as the world's best rider.
It would've been easy to call his win a fluke. That is, until Dave finished 2nd place in 2019 and then did it again in 2020. It wouldn’t be hard to make a case for Dave Stewart being the most decorated Onewheel Racer of all time.
A lot of learning comes along with that type of riding experience, including the importance of high-quality safety gear. A solid helmet is a given but anyone who’s ridden down a trail knows that a great pair of wrist guards is absolutely essential. After doing some research, Stewart realized that there was a void in the market for quality wrist guards.
So, Dave decided he would fill that gap. The first step was dialing in the under-wrist plastic splint with the right amount of flex and rebound. Stewart explains: “Too soft and they don't provide optimal impact absorption. Too hard and they break or don't flex enough on impact.” Then Dave had to design the rest of the wrist guard and did so by targeting softer, more comfortable material. It also had to be highly durable for full coverage over the entire hand.
The first production run of Fxnction wrist guards were sent out to the Dirt Surferz race in Arkansas, where Dave and other Onewheel Racers put them to the test. The trails out there are notoriously tough with sharp shale rock, which a true test for riders and their gear.
Dave went on to say “that was a big moment, to do real world testing in that environment. We ended up breaking them and knew that we had to change the plastics.”
Dave worked with the best riders to iterate on the initial design and create a wrist guard that was miles ahead of anything else on the market. People took notice. During every event, word would spread and more folks started wearing Fxnction wrist guards.
More wrist guard orders meant more boxes to pack and ship as well as more customers to support. It also meant dealing with additional manufacturers, increased investments and, as any small business owner can attest, more headaches. “To run the social media, fulfillment, customer emails and then juggle the manufacturing and the product development, it was a lot,” explains Dave. All of these growing pains left him with less time to pursue his true passion: designing the best damn safety gear for Onewheel riders. And just riding trails with friends.
Looking Ahead
The Onewheel team saw an opportunity to help solve Dave's growing pains and double down on getting more riders into the best safety gear on the market. Dave can channel his expertise and drive to design high-quality gear while we can scale his operation and solve some logistical challenges. In short, we realized that partnering would be a pretty epic win, win.
“I’m really excited about this partnership and I think Fxnction riders will be too, because it means we can just be that much better, “ Dave said in an interview.” “We’ll be able to release new products more quickly and scale operations which will solve lots of manufacturing and shipping problems. It'll also offer better fulfillment and support to just do everything at a higher level.”
By acquiring Fxnction Gear, Future Motion will bring Dave in-house as our Fxnction Gear Product Development Lead. “This investment in rider safety is a win for everyone” explains Onewheel Director of Marketing, Jack Mudd. “Dave gets to focus on developing the best possible gear, and we help get Fxnction out to more riders. It’s an awesome opportunity to scale a community-driven product and get more folks riding with the protection they need.”
Going forward, Fxnction gear will continue to create industry-leading safety gear for Onewheel riders and beyond. Wrist guards and other Fxnction gear will be available on both the Fxnction website and Onewheel.com as well as our vast dealer network nationwide.
“I believe we can change the culture and actually make wrist guards (and other protective gear) cool. We can make them into something that people want to wear and are proud of,” says Dave. “That's what the brand is all about.”
