DROPOUTS OFFER ADVANTAGES
By Marc Sani, Publisher

TAIPEI-Lynn Ockenden is an unlikely entrepreneur. More to the point, she is the only American woman at the Taipei Cycle Show trying to sell her invention to Taiwanese manufacturers.

A cardiovascular nurse by training and a driven inventor by inclination, Ockenden has put her Minneapolis home deep in hock, spent her daughter's college education fund and raised money from friends to finance more than $300,000 in legal fees protecting the design of a dropout.

But this is no ordinary dropout. It's essentially a universal adapter that fenders, baskets, pannier racks, training wheels, kickstands, surfboard racks and trailers can plug into in seconds-no fuss, no bother. Its simplicity is startling.

"It's hard for people initially to take this seriously, but once they see the design and how it works they understand it," said Ockenden, whose interest in mechanical design comes from her father, a former oil refinery engineer.

Ockenden has been tinkering with the design since 1997. She has raised and spent almost $500,000, including her own money, promoting it. "I call this my get rich quick scheme," she said, laughing. "I'm flying solo on this. I have my house, my only daughter's college fund, and my personal savings into this-I'm mostly living week to week.

Ockenden still works two days a week as a nurse during cardiac surgery. And she's received just enough investment money, mostly from people in the medical industry, to pay herself a minuscule salary.

Her company, Transbike Systems, and its investors are so convinced of the dropout's utility in the marketplace that there are patents in the U.S. and Taiwan and patents pending throughout most of Asia, India, Turkey and the European Union.

"We did this to protect the idea. It's to protect my intellectual property and to say that we have something of value," she said. And protect it she will. One American company that saw her design and made a feeble attempt at a conceptual knock-off has heard from her-politely to be sure.

But in an industry driven by the view that its customers are mostly young, white males popping off cliffs or sprinting through criteriums, Ockenden's invention is decidedly unfashionable.
The dropouts-and its market-are cyclists who use bikes for family fun, commuting, trekking or the occasional shopping expedition. It's a near-perfect addition to the comfort-commuting category.

Anyone who wants to slip on fenders because it just rained, hook up a trailer for a quick spin with the kids, or slip on a front or rear basket for a trip to the store would appreciate its ease and utility.

Ockenden, shrugging off the Iraq war and the fear of SARS, has lugged a modified comfort bike, racks and baskets more than half-way around the world to show her design to managers at Giant, Merida, United Alloy, Batavus and others. And nothing pleases her more than to wheel her bike out of her room on the 23rd floor of the Grand Hyatt in Taipei to a second floor mezzanine so that she can demonstrate the dropouts' utility.

This is her second trip and people are getting to know her, thanks in part to Jay Townley and Nai-Wen Kiang. Townley and Kiang worked for Schwinn years ago, spearheading the shift of some of Schwinn's production to a then fledgling company called Giant. Both have contacts throughout Taiwan's bicycle industry.

She's also charmed some support from SRAM's Stan and F.K. Day, including a modified RockShox fork sporting her dropouts. "Stan and F.K. have been wonderful," she said. And Ockenden adds that she's "working" on QBP's Steve Flagg.

Ockenden has also been to Trek to show them her dropout and briefly pitched it to Mike Sinyard at last year's Interbike. No luck so far. Engineers at Burley, who have looked at it, say the dropout design would dramatically simplify hooking up their trailers.

Accessory manufacturers could easily include injection-molded adapters for racks and fenders-equipment normally bolted to a bike. But-and it's a big but-manufacturers first have to adopt her dropout design. By the way, Ockenden owns the patents on the adapters as well.