Stephenson:Neal:Quicksilver:398:...Frenchman wears those sabots (Professorbikeybike)

From the Quicksilver Metaweb.

Note: this isn't the first appearence of the term sabot.

A bit of etymology:

While a sabot is merely a wooden shoe, to sabotage something is quite different. "The word is said to date from a French railway strike of 1910 when workers destroyed the wooden shoes (sabots) that held the rails in place" (http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=66308&tocid=0&query=sabotage&ct=). The story that the word sabotage originally referred to damage done to machinery by sabots is not believed to be true.

Another note: N. Stephenson however uses the latter explanation of the word in this little bit of etymology on p. 444.