Richard Mille’s RM 67-02 Finds Its Natural Habitat on Mathieu van der Poel’s Wrist

On a fast, sun-bleached ride outside Alicante, Mathieu van der Poel looks less like a rider preserving energy than a rider creating it.

While everyone else is managing the climb, he’s playing with it, talking, accelerating, looping back downhill and returning with the ease of someone who has plenty left in reserve.

On his left wrist is the Richard Mille RM 67-02 Extra Flat, a 32-gram watch that makes far more sense there than it would locked away in a safe.

At a glance

A 32-gram watch made for suffering

The RM 67-02 Extra Flat is the kind of Richard Mille that explains the brand’s appeal in a single number.

At 32 grams, it’s not merely light for a luxury watch; it’s light enough to disappear during the kind of ride where every unnecessary gram begins to feel personal.

Van der Poel wears it on an elasticated sports strap, the sort of practical detail that matters when a watch is expected to stay put through sweat, vibration, mud and sudden bursts of violence from the road.

Its price, around £150,000, makes the context almost absurd in the best Richard Mille way.

Most owners would think twice before taking a watch at that level anywhere near wet tarmac, gravel dust or supermarket parking bollards, yet van der Poel has worn his through much harder terrain.

The RM 67-02 has already been on his wrist in the mud of the cyclocross world championship in Liévin and across the cobbled punishment of Paris-Roubaix.

That matters because cycling is cruel to objects.

A racing bike transmits shock, grit and constant micro-vibration, while cyclocross adds cold, impact and mud in places mud has no business being.

Mathieu van der Poel is the right stress test

Van der Poel is one of the rare cyclists whose range has become part of his mythology.

He came up through cyclocross, has road and cyclocross world titles, and has spoken openly about wanting to add a mountain bike world title to that list.

“Cyclocross is the thing I’ve done since I could almost walk, so I’d say it’s the easiest to get ready for,” he said during a sit-down in Spain.

Mountain biking, by contrast, remains the discipline that demands the biggest adjustment.

“The bike is quite different to a road bike,” he said. “The suspension, the tyres, everything. It takes time to adapt.”

For a watch brand built around extreme use, that mix of disciplines is unusually valuable.

Road racing brings long hours, high speed and crashes; cyclocross brings mud, winter and impact; mountain biking brings a different kind of shock through the wrist and cockpit.

Van der Poel’s own view of the watch is direct.

He has said he was into watches, and Richard Mille in particular, before the partnership, calling the ambassadorship a dream for a watch enthusiast.

That’s important, because the RM 67-02 doesn’t feel like a ceremonial object on him.

It looks like part of the kit, sitting opposite a Whoop on the other arm, with one device measuring the athlete and the other testing the limits of a mechanical luxury watch.

The Richard Mille athlete playbook

Richard Mille has always operated slightly sideways from traditional Swiss watchmaking.

The brand arrived in 2001 with the RM 001 and a clear idea that a luxury watch could borrow thinking from racing cars, advanced materials and competitive sport.

That thinking became more convincing when the watches left controlled environments and started being worn during competition.

Felipe Massa became the brand’s first major sporting partner in the mid-2000s, wearing Richard Mille watches in Formula 1 at a time when the young company was still building its identity.

The famous 2009 accident, in which Massa suffered a serious eye injury, became part of the brand’s internal lore because the watch survived the crash.

Since then, Richard Mille’s athlete roster has expanded across tennis, golf, Formula 1, rallying, sprinting, cycling, heptathlon, showjumping and freediving.

Rafael Nadal gave the brand one of its defining case studies, wearing ultra-light tourbillon watches while putting them through the torque and speed of elite tennis.

Bubba Watson brought a different kind of punishment through golf’s violent swing mechanics, while riders such as Tadej Pogačar and van der Poel have made cycling an increasingly natural arena for the RM 67-02.

The common thread isn’t simply visibility.

Richard Mille’s strongest athlete partnerships work because the watches are asked to do something difficult in public, on the wrist of someone who can’t afford to think about the watch while competing.

Details & Specifications

The RM 67-02 makes the most sense when it’s being used in a way that seems slightly unreasonable.

On Mathieu van der Poel’s wrist, it isn’t a delicate trophy pretending to be a sports watch; it’s a remarkably expensive, remarkably light mechanical object being treated as part of the ride.