FULLERTON : Lock Would Free Up Skateboarders

After his $100 skateboard was stolen from his front yard, 12-year-old Bryan Dorn decided that he had to find a way to protect his new one. His solution was a portable lock for which the federal government recently awarded him a patent.

The lock, which now is a cardboard prototype, would snap around the wheels of a skateboard. A metal cable would connect it to an immovable object and could also be used to carry the lock over one shoulder.

Bryan created the lock with the help of his father, Randy Dorn, an electrical designer, for a fifth-grade science contest. Randy Dorn said he joked to Bryan that if the design got an award, they would patent it. The lock won first place.

Bryan and Randy Dorn said they want to market the lock for about $15 to $20 and are looking for a manufacturer and marketer.

Bryan and his skater friends in the sixth grade at Acacia Elementary School say skateboard locks would let them become more mobile.

“Some people would ride their bike if they were going somewhere really far, like the Brea Mall,” Bryan said. “I’d ride my skateboard.”

He said the lock would allow him to leave the skateboard safely outside the mall. Some merchants don’t want skateboards inside their stores.

Tim Hastings, 12, said that when he went into a Pic ‘N’ Save recently, the security guard told Tim to leave the board with him. When Tim came back, the guard was gone, and the board sat outside for the taking, he said.

Several sixth-grade students said they would like to skate to school but can’t since they are not allowed to store skateboards in their classrooms.

Principal Georgia Menges said that if skaters had locks, they would be allowed to lock their boards to a bicycle rack. Skateboards were banned from inside the school because they were cluttering up the classrooms, Menges said.

Some professional skaters said they doubt that a lock would catch on. “You’d look like a damn nerd if you pulled out a skateboard lock,” said Jeremiah Stansbury, who skates for Basic Skateboards, in Costa Mesa.

Kelly Kraushaar, 12, a skater at Acacia, said he would rather look like a nerd than to have his board stolen.

Stansbury, who works at a skate and surf shop in Newport Beach, said he has seen locks advertised in Thrasher, a skateboard magazine, but has never seen one used.

Francisco Estrada, who works at a skateboard shop in Anaheim, said he has never seen a skateboard lock for sale but thinks that there might be a market for one.

Randy Dorn said that when he applied for the patent, he was told that no other lock designs have been patented, and he thinks that none is being sold.