Three-Wheeled Thunder

Most people have never been inside of a Boeing factory.  In the buildings inhabited by Boeing employees you will hardly ever see anything that even remotely looks like a part of an airplane.  Why?  Because they are just tiny parts of the total picture that makes up the final product.  Yeah, there are some weird-looking parts and things out there in the aircraft manufacturing world.

But never mind that--that's not what this blog is about.  It's about the ubiquitous Boeing tricycle.

If you've ever been around a retirement community you've probably seen them before in the 'non-Boeing' version. The Boeing variety is virtually identical to the trikes that I used to occasionally see seniors struggling to pedal. The difference is that the yellow ones that Boeing buys are all 'heavy-duty' tricycles. They're manly, macho, and beefy tricycles.  Don't try to pigeonhole these trikes in with the garden variety ones that the oldsters ride. These babies have heavy-duty axles and hubs. Even their spokes are heavy duty--I'd say twice the thickness of the spokes found on a typical AARP-approved civilian tricycle. These babies are made to haul airplane parts.  Those childhood years of riding plastic Big Wheel trikes was in preparation of riding a real tricycle in adulthood.  A Boeing factory tricycle.

First of all, you can tell by watching them that they are not easy to ride.  I first noticed that years and years ago when I first saw senior citizens pedaling them.  They apparently only come in one gear: Too high.  Maybe it's for simplicity (less things to go wrong and less potential confusion from shifting).  All I know is that when you watch someone start to pedal away on one they really have to lean into it.  It takes a lot of power to get anything rolling when it's geared too high.  I don't know why they are geared that way to begin with.  Old people don't want to ride fast, and industrial plant workers can't ride fast.  It's against the rules.

I'm pretty sure I saw my first Boeing factory cruiser well before I ever went to work in the Everett plant back in 1998. I was a regular shopper at the now-defunct Boeing Surplus store.  Boeing Surplus had a long-running history in our area and had achieved a somewhat 'cult status' as a place you just had to visit if you're ever in the Pacific Northwest.  I don't recall ever seeing a trike for sale in there but I do remember these kind of bicycles for sale from time to time when they had exceeded their useful life.  They all had the same extra-heavy spokes, they were all yellow (with various custom tidbits like tape, stickers, and gadgetry brackets added), and they all had that gaudy, heavy steel plate attached in the center.  The plate had the organization or 'owner' welded onto it.  Yes, welded wording.  How macho is that?

What made me think about writing about the Boeing tricycle are my observations of the riders while I'm at work.  If it were legal to take pictures inside of a Boeing plant I would have some video or snaps of them, but that sort of thing is strictly verboten.  I'm not about to jeopardize my job over something stupid like taking pictures when I'm not supposed to.  (The pictures in this blog post were gleaned from the internet.)

There's probably a rule somewhere about people painting them because I only see them in yellow as I've said already.  One area I do see a lot of variation is in the cargo area of the trike.  Some have baskets on the front, some on the rear, and some have both.  Some have platforms, some have a mounted large, wooden box resembling a pickup truck.  I think they all have thumb bells (you know, the 'ching-ching' kind) on the handlebars.  There is one of them here that has a flashlight mounted on the handlebars.  I've seen them with number plates on the front--apparently pretending they are riding their racing motorcycle.

How cool can a full-grown person look while riding a tricycle?  The riders come in all sizes, shapes, and manner of dress.  After all, take a large assortment of people, each with their own 'brand' of fashion, their own unique body shape, or their own individual 'look' and put them on a Boeing tricycle.  They all look the same: Out of place.  Picture a guy with a gray ponytail, Harley-Davidson t-shirt (also ubiquitous at Boeing), and work boots struggling to pedal one of those bright yellow babies.  Then you have the opposite end of the spectrum.  I little-bitty lady sitting astride one and trying to get it moving.

What really clinched me wanting to pen this phenomenon was watching what they do while riding them.  Their body language.  Their interactions with their fellow workers.

The other day I watched, amused, as a couple of trikers going opposite directions stopped next to each other.  You could tell they were trying to 'work' it.  In their minds they were astride rumbling Harleys or sitting in bright, shiny, classic convertibles talking to each other.  Their body language had that cocky one-handed lean on the handlebars with the body shrug going on.  I wasn't close enough to hear what they were saying, but they had that, "Whassup  Howzit goin' Yo" thing going on.  I could tell.  It was an interaction of vehicle cool.  It was like a Fonzie thing.  You could see them change modes as soon as they were within eyesight of each other.  Another time I watched a guy do a cool U-turn maneuver   While there is really nothing cool about making a U-turn in general, the way he coolly whipped his body and leaned in while he did it portrayed a very high level of 'check me out' cool.  I was instantly jealous.  It was masterful.