Richard Mille has just unveiled its latest collaboration, and it might be the most literal interpretation of a sports partnership the brand has ever produced.
The RM 64-01 Tourbillon Colnago, built with legendary Italian bicycle manufacturer Colnago and limited to just 50 pieces, is a watch whose entire architecture is drawn from the structure of a racing bike, not as a design concept, but as an actual engineering principle carried through every component.
Colnago was founded by Ernesto Colnago in Cambiago, a small town northeast of Milan, in 1954, and has spent seven decades building frames that have carried riders to Tour de France victories, World Championship titles and Olympic podiums. The relationship between the two brands has been building quietly for years, through shared riders and a mutual obsession with lightness and precision, and the RM 64-01 is the most complete expression of that so far.
The movement inside, the manually wound RM64-01 calibre, is made from 274 components built around three principles: lightness, transparency and volume. The barrel sits at 1 o’clock and feeds power through the gear train to a variable-inertia tourbillon at 7 o’clock, a layout that directly mirrors the spatial logic of a bicycle drivetrain. The upper titanium bridges carry a star-shaped geometry drawn from Colnago’s Master frames of the 1980s, which were engineered to improve torsional rigidity without adding weight, and the same logic applies here. Power reserve sits at around 65 hours.
The case measures 43.21 x 49.94 x 14.23mm and is built from White and Azure Blue Quartz TPT, a composite material Richard Mille uses across its sports watches for its mechanical properties and low weight. The Azure Blue is a new hue developed specifically for this piece, and it matches the white and blue that runs across Colnago’s current C68 road bike. For the first time on a Richard Mille sports watch, 5N red gold plays a significant role in the visual identity, appearing on the flange and crown cap. The crown itself is finished with Colnago’s ace of clubs emblem in black lacquer, and the hands are shaped to resemble bicycle crank arms.
The face of the collaboration is Tadej Pogačar, the four-time Tour de France champion who races on Colnago bicycles for UAE Team Emirates. He won’t be wearing the watch during competition, which Colnago confirmed citing safety concerns around having something worth close to $1 million strapped to a wrist in a peloton, a concern that reflects how frequently Richard Mille pieces have been targeted in robberies in recent years. The watch retails at 800,000 Swiss francs, approximately $1 million USD, and is already available through Richard Mille boutiques. With 50 pieces made and Pogačar’s name attached, it won’t take long.
