Continuing his efforts to time and record every conceivable type of sport out there, Richard Mille has just come up with his latest: the all new RM70-01 Tourbillon Alain Prost, a new watch that looks to have begun with a simple conversation with Alain Prost.

Apparently, one of the biggest problems professional cyclists have is determining how many kilometers they’ve ridden since the beginning of the season.  Enter the new RM70-01 Tourbillon Alain Prost, which incorporates an essential ace up its sleeve: an odometer.

Equipped with a 70-hour power reserve and monitored by an indicator powered by a planetary differential at 5 o’clock, the Calibre RM70-01 is a manually wound tourbillon movement that sports a baseplate and bridges forged from grade 5 titanium to ensure it can withstand the pounding from the roughest trails with ease. 

And typical of Richard Mille calibers, this beautifully finished movement possesses almost vertigo-inducing depth.  Best of all, both its vertical architecture, which lines up the barrel and tourbillon along a single axis, as well as its compact size were designed to incorporate a never-before-seen totalizer that can display the overall distance a cyclist has traveled within a given period. 

The only caveat here is that the cyclist has to manually input the miles one by one as he goes along, or at the end of the day by tallying the total distance covered.  Inspired by the gear indicators on a handlebar gearshift, the cyclist “counts” the kilometers by pushing the pusher at 2 o’clock to select any of the 5 rollers of the odometer as seen from the odometer’s titanium window.  Once a selection is made, the pusher at 10 o’clock advances that roller by one. 

So, nothing automatic about the odometer, then.  This makes it more of a log than an actual odometer.  In fact, the user (it doesn’t even have to be a cyclist) can choose to input the number of anything he or she chooses, making this “odometer” similar to one of those hand-held tally counters that door men use to count the number of people attending an event… just way-cooler.

Still, this being a Richard Mille caliber, its execution is near flawless.  Just look at how the numbers of the odometer are perfectly aligned; how every single manipulation of the second pusher is accompanied by tactile click.  And how the mechanism has been fitted with a neutral position (N), which, thanks to a spring-lock, avoids accidental manipulations.

But the real coup here is the design of the case.  And what a case it is!  Machined out of Carbon TPT, it looks like nothing before it, and that includes Richard Mille timepieces!  It combines tonneau, rectangular and asymmetrical shapes, and is the perfect example of how function dictates form.