El 4 de julio arranca el Tour de France 2026. Tudor no va como cronometrador oficial de la carrera —ese rol lo tiene Tissot. Lo que hace Tudor es diferente, y más ambicioso: manda un equipo a pedalear.
No other watch brand has done what Tudor did in 2022: take a professional cycling team, put its name on it, sign it with Fabian Cancellara as director and send it to compete on the UCI WorldTour circuit. Not as a shirt sponsor. As owner.
Tudor Pro Cycling Team was technically born in 2019, under the name Swiss Racing Academy. Cancellara – a five-time Paris-Roubaix and Tour of Flanders champion combined, one of the greatest Swiss cyclists in history – took the reins in 2022 and took the brand with him. The team climbed the ranks quickly: UCI ProTeam license in 2023, debut in the Tour de France in 2025 as a guest, and in 2026 automatic qualification for all the WorldTours on the calendar, including the three Grand Tours. They are in the Giro. They will be in the Vuelta. And on July 4, the Tour starts.
They are the only watch brand in the history of professional cycling with its own racing team.
Bumblebee is no coincidence
On June 3, 2026—less than a month before the start of the Tour—Tudor introduced the Black Bay Chrono 39 "Bumblebee": a 39mm chronograph with a bright yellow dial and black registers. The color combination doesn't need much explanation for anyone who has ever seen the Tour leader's yellow jersey.
The Bumblebee also solves the most frequent criticism of the Black Bay Chrono line: it was big. The previous model measured 41mm and 14.4mm in height. The new one comes in at 39mm and 13.1mm—more compact without sacrificing the MT5813 movement, Tudor's manufactured caliber based on the Breitling B01, produced in its own Kenissi facilities. Tudor sets it to -2/+4 seconds per day, stricter than the COSC standard (-4/+6). Power reserve of 70 hours. Water resistance of 200 meters.
Price: CHF 5,500 (approximately $6,725 USD—check with your dealer, local price may vary). It is not limited edition.
The Tour in the Spanish-speaking community
Cycling is not a peripheral sport in Latin America. Colombia is the fourth cycling power in the world in terms of presence in the WorldTour. Mexico has an urban cycling community that has grown steadily in the last decade. Spain—a Spanish-speaking market with a direct presence in the Tour—has been producing champions for decades.
The Tudor-cycling connection is not that of a brand that puts its logo on the arrival screen and calls that a strategy. It is that of a brand that hires directors, pays riders' salaries, loads bicycles on trucks and loses stages in the mountains just like everyone else. That changes the type of conversation you can have with the cycling fan who still doesn't know anything about watches but does know who Cancellara is.
The Bumblebee is the visible piece of that equation—the object that connects the world of Tour with that of watchmaking. That it is yellow, that it is a chronograph, that it is called "bumblebee" and that it arrives just before the Grande Boucle is no editorial accident: it is a product strategy executed with Swiss precision.
What Tudor is not
To be exact: Tudor does not time the Tour de France. Tissot has that contract. Tudor also does not have sponsorships in the race's favorite teams. What he has is something structurally different: presence within the race, not around it. Their runners start from the same starting line as Pogačar and Vingegaard.
In terms of horological visibility in the Tour, that may be less immediate than a logo on the official timepiece. But in terms of brand narrative – of what story Tudor tells about itself – it is considerably more interesting.
Latin America Perspective
The Black Bay Chrono 39 Bumblebee is available at Tudor boutiques and dealers now. In Mexico, Colombia and Argentina, local price depends on authorized dealer and import taxes — reference MSRP is CHF 5,500, approximately $6,725 USD (this is approximate; check updated pricing with your local Tudor dealer before purchasing).
