One of my most time spending hobbies is by far cycling, primarily road cycling. I have two road bikes, one is located at home and one is on my holiday cottage. Let me be quite clear, I am just an amateur rider, I have never participated in any race! However, I enjoy watching races. Whenever there is a road cycling race available on Eurosport I try to watch it. So, no wonder that at the beginning of the May of this year I spent quite a lot of time on my sofa following carefully the first Grand Tour of this year - Giro d'Italia.
If you are not familiar with the road cycling sport, Grand Tours are the three most prestigious cycling races, which lasts for three weeks. First one is already mentioned Giro d'Italia which starts at the beginning of May, followed by the most famous of all - Tour de France in July, the last one is La Vuelta de Espana at the end of August. Usually they are called just Giro, Tour and Vuelta. In each of this race only 22 teams are allowed to participate, each team consist of 8 riders. 18 teams from the "first league" (called UCI WTT World Team) have the right to participate automatically, while the other four are selected by organizers from the 17 teams from the"second league" (called UCI Pro team). Within those 17 teams that have Pro Team licence is also a very interesting, quite young team from Swiss - Tudor cycling team. This team was established only in 2019 under the name Swiss Racing Academy and had no high ambitions. It competed in the basic professional level (UCI Continental team). But in 2022 the very known Swiss cyclist Fabian Cancellara took over the ownership, he then persuaded Tudor to became the official main sponsor, so team was renamed to Tudor cycling team and in 2023 this team was upgraded to Pro Tour licence. At the time being this team is already placed near top 20 in the official UCI ranking, so with good chances to jump to a World team soon (at the end of each season this ranking is crucial for getting the World Tour licence for the next season)..
From 2023 Tudor is also an official timekeeper of Giro. And due to that in 2024 Tudor cycling team was selected from the Giro organizers to participate in Giro as one of the four Pro Tour teams. This was the very first participation of Tudor team in any of the grand tours.
I follow the Tudor team due to very strange reasons. The most obvious is of course the fact that this is the only cycling team that is named after the watch brand (which is not just any brand...), the second is the fact that this team uses the same brand of bicycles - BMC - as is my home bicycle (the other one that I have is Merida btw.), and the third one is the fact that they have the best looking jerseys among all teams, of course for my taste. No, I don't have the official replica of their jersey, but the only reason is that I have too many different ones from the period when Tudor was not established yet.
Let us all go back now to my sofa in May 2024, watching one of the first stages of Giro on Eurosport. As it happens too often on this TV channel, the live picture was interrupted for a commercial break. And then this commercial video appeared:
Pelagos is for my personal taste one of the rare Tudor's that I would consider buying (beside Tudor Advisor Heritage, which is a mechanical alarm watch and fits into that category within my collection). Therefore I was well informed about Tudor Pelagos FXD Chrono which was dedicated to Alinghi Red Bull racing - Swiss challenger for the famous America's Cup sailing competition. I even considered buying one (on our local forum there was one for sale at a very decent price) as I liked it. However a link to an Alinghi sailing team was a huge disadvantage as I am fully ignorant to this team and a sport as such.
But this Pelagos FXD Chrono, called Cycling Edition, was for me something new, fresh, it had a strong connection to the sport that I liked and it looked great.
I heard before that Tudor made a special cycling edition of Black bay chronograph in the past, but that model was not available for sale and was given just to the Tudor cycling team members. So my first reaction was, that for sure this watch would again be made just in a very limited edition available for just a very narrow market and of course very highly priced. Yet I decided to look at the Tudor official web site for more information. I was more than pleasantly surprised when I realised that the watch was a regular edition watch placed in the very reasonable same price category as the Alinghi Red Bull version - 5.400 EUR. "This is going to be my next watch", was my conclusion. A few minutes later I sent an email to the local AD asking about availability of this watch. AD had no idea what I was talking about, he offered me an Alinghi watch! I also checked Chrono24, but there were no offers yet at the time being.
Few days later I personally visited AD. I showed them on the official Tudor's web page what watch I was interested in. They put me on a list and they promised me I would be informed when the watch came. At the beginning of June first watches were available on Chrono24. But prices on Chrono were ridiculous, the first one started with almost 10.000 EUR! Week to week and step by step prices decreased, but still they were all well beyond the official price. A kind of Rolex syndrome, I would say. Luckily even though Tudor is Rolex's brother, at the beginning of August prices stabilised on the recommended 5400 EUR level. And I was even able to get it for 5000 EUR. Not a week later my local AD called me to say that watch arrived. A bit too late ... But it is important to know, there is no problem getting one, so don't pay over the recommended price!
The first impression of the watch as a whole was mixed. Watch itself visually looks great. Black carbon case is done very precisely. Inner red tachymeter really stands out as something different. The tachymeter is also the only real connection to cycling, to be honest. Namely as it is extended to three full circles, it can measure the speed from 240 km/h up to 20 km/h. Yet, even this distribution is not optimal. For better use it would be better to develop the first circle even later (for example from 6 o'clock where the speed is 120) and extend it to as low as at least 15 km/h. As no cyclist goes faster than 120 km/h even on the longest descents, while on serious climbs speed can easily fall below 15 km/h.
Bezel is fixed and its only purpose is to have a minute scale as inside there is no place for it due to the multi-lines tachymeter. That is quite ok but in a way it is a decline from a Pelagos diver's platform. On the other hand, hands, hour markers and the shape of the watch all indicate that we have a "true" Pelagos in front of us.
Pity that the Tudor mark on the crown is not marked red as it is on the Tudor team's jersey. That detail would for sure give more visual connection to cycling.
It is interesting, that even though the "predecessor" Alinghi FXD chrono has a 200m of water resistance, this cycling edition has just 100m. Which is enough for cycling, of course. So having in mind the fixed bezel and WR it looks like Tudor deliberately changed the diver's soul of the Pelagos platform to "continental" watch.
Pushers of the chronograph are not screwed in, only the main crown is.
What I can't understand is why the inhouse chronograph based on the Breitling B01 movement has just one totalizer (minute counter) with only 45 minutes. For the serious use of chronograph this is not enough and the original B01 is by far better. Namely, it is true that the original B01 has only a 30 min totalizer but it has an additional counter, which sums up to 12 hours. By omitting the hour counter Tudor is much more elegant, but measuring only 45 minutes is a disadvantage which causes additional calculation if you measure more than 45 min intervals.
The next thing that I don't like very much are the fixed lugs. A huge disadvantage if you are a fan of changing straps! The only possible solutions are one piece straps, and as you know the only real solutions of this kind of straps on the market are the nylon straps and with a bit of luck you can find some leather straps. But in the case of leather ones it is better to order some hand made straps which are thinner below the watch.
The only real reason for fixed lugs that I can think of is the better integrity of the lugs and a case as a whole. As the whole case is made of carbon, the standard lugs would be more exposed to potential chip off. But that is just my guess.
The backplate is very "boring", a lot of empty space is not used for some "cycling edition" reference as one might expect..
The original nylon black strap was another disappointment. Even though a buckle and strap holders are all made of carbon, the strap as a whole looks cheap, it does not go well with the elegance that watch itself offers. Of course in general you can't expect anything higher from the nylon type of the strap. So it is a pity that Tudor did not consider adding additional leather black strap with red stiches for the less sporty use of the watch, as the watch itself certainly allowes to be used for a more elegant occasions as well. Having in mind fixed lugs that kind of a strap would be a huge added value.
Even though the end edges of the strap are well stitched and firmed, the strap itself is still not as stiff as rubber or leather ones so putting the strap through the holders is a bit annoying.
On luminova on the dial and on the hands the diver's origin is clearly seen. Very bright, long lasting, excellent. I particularly like the bluish tone of it.
The package of the watch is again a bit disappointing. Very standard Tudor box, no sign of cycling whatsoever. In the box there is a drawer for an additional strap, as said sadly there is no one.
After the initial stated check up, the time for putting the watch on my wrist finally came. The very first remark is that the watch is incredibly light - only 40 grams all together. As the watch has a carbon case and a nylon strap that was of course expected but still the feeling is quite unusual. Before I fully get used to it I even checked from time to time if the watch is really still on my wrist.
43mm watch case with 51mm L2l and 14mm thickness is almost optimal size for my wrist. 100m of WR worked quite well in the normal swimming conditions, I did not try to dive any deeper. But I of course also tested the watch on the bicycle. Due to its lightness, wearing it on during cycling was no issue at all. The nylon strap also showed its good sides as sweating beneath the strap was minimal (in the sea the nylon also proved to be a good choice, surprisingly better than rubber).
Is this enough that this watch will replace my Garmin cycling computer? Absolutely not! I would never consider changing it as the watch can not offer even the basic functionalities to which we are used to on every basic cycling computer (or a sportwatch). To be quite straight forward, I will never even wear it during my ride again. I am afraid that this watch simply would not survive a potential crash which might happen.
But I did find one very useful usage of the watch, closely connected to professional cycling. Namely at the time this review is prepared, La Vuelta is in progress (and commercials for this watch are present daily at least three times...). As during the direct live stream the reminding kilometers to the end are always shown on the left upper end of the screen, by this watch I can check how fast the best riders are going. But apart from that and the fact that the watch has the similar carbon structure as the bicycle frames, that is the only thing that can justify the "cycling edition" name of the watch.
I almost forgot to mention that this watch well deserves the chronometer certificate. During the two weeks of constant wear day and night, land and water, walking, cycling, swimming, sleeping, the watch gained 10 second. So less the +1 sec/daily.
In general I must admit that I liked the watch more and more every day. I even get used to a nylon strap, even dare to wear it in the office under my shirt sleeve. This watch has become one of my favourite everyday's ones! I can only recommend this great looking watch to all, it has in my opinion a very decent and fair price compared to competition. But of course don't expect this to be your cycling watch!
As an official timekeeper Tudor also prepared the very special edition of this watch for the winner of the Giro. On this special edition the strap is pink and on the watch the red color is replaced by pink as the pink jersey in Giro is for the whole race worn by the leader and the winner at the end (In the Tour a yellow jersey and in the Vuelta the red jersey have the same meaning). This year Tadej Pogačar destroyed the competition and won the race with the huge time difference. It's just a shame he will probably never be going to wear this earned watch as he is an official promotor of Richard Mille brand and on same stages he has even worn RM watch during the race. But nevertheless this award watch still gives the whole new meaning to the "cycling edition". Now one can say, this is the watch that is given to the Giro d'Italia champion.
P.S.: Official timekeeper in Tour and Vuelta is Tissot.
P.S.S.: Tadej Pogačar won also Tour the France, while La Vuelta was just won by Primož Roglič. So this year all grand tours were won by riders from Slovenia, fabulous result for a such a small country.
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