This video from Nicolai deserves more attention. I’m not totally sure whether that’s because it’s the perfect parody of that internet era phenomenon ’the unboxing video’, or if it’s because Nicolai has disappeared so far up an orifice that it’s coming out of another one in a projectile vomit reminiscent of Nathan Barley’s hair. You’re going to have to watch it to decide.
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The item being unboxed is a book. The book comes with tools – not promotional items. There are suggestions where to place the book around your home. There are no page numbers. There is no contents page. There is no correct order to read the book, but there is an epilogue, but it’s not at the end.
There is a picture of a box of scrap metal that is given the level of significance usually only found in an undergraduate art exhibition. There are pages. There are blank pages. There are QR codes (which is actually a pretty cool idea). There is lift music in the background, there are stickers. 26 is a round number, like 27.5 and 29.
Nicolai has either out Rapha-ed Rapha and beaten all the gravel marketing hyperbole into sand, or they’ve created the bicycle industry equivalent of The Thick Of It. I’ve watched the video more than once and I still can’t decide which it is.
What I do know is that despite that, I really want to have a look at the book. Dammit.
While you’re here…
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