2004 went down in the annals of professional bicycle racing as the year that the sport's most hallowed record was finally broken. Until this year, no rider had ever won six Tours de France, though five riders – Anquetil, Merckx, Hinault, Indurain, and Armstrong – had racked up five wins apiece. But in 2004, a new record was set when Armstrong entered Paris as the winner of six consecutive Tours de France.

With a different and distinctive new route, the 2004 Tour was intended to shake things up a bit. The first week started in Belgium, with one stage even including a section of the famous pavé (the cobbled roads that are at the heart of Classics like Paris-Roubaix). The team time trial was re-vamped with a new set of rules that limited the amount of time that a team could lose in this stage, thus balancing the scales so that an outstanding rider with a less powerful team would still have a chance at the top places in the overall classification. Additionally, by having no individual time trial until the final week of the race, and then having that time trial be straight up the intimidating climb of Alpe d'Huez, the race organizers hoped to keep the race for the overall victory wide open until the very end.

The big face-off, of course, would be between returning champion Lance Armstrong and persistent underdog Jan Ullrich, who entered the 2004 Tour with the record of having won it once, and never placed worse than second. Tyler Hamilton appears with the Phonak team this year, while Team CSC fielded Ivan Basso and the Illes Balears-Banesto squad gave Francisco Mancebo a shot at a high place in Paris. The Euskatel team is always one to watch, with their man Iban Mayo coming in with hopes to challenge Armstrong.

World Cycling Productions has really done an excellent job with bringing the 2004 Tour de France to DVD, because the 2004 Tour itself really wasn't all that exciting if you followed it live. After the fact, though, it's possible to look back and know what the most interesting parts of the race were... and WCP has wisely chosen to place its focus for the DVD coverage accordingly.

In a nutshell, we get to see the interesting action, with the dull "waiting around for someone to attack, but nobody is actually doing anything, ho hum" footage nicely edited out. In all the stages, both flat and mountain, we're given an excellent summary of the high points early in the stage, showing us key attacks, breakaways, intermediate sprints, and so on, before shifting into straight "live" mode for the last part of the stage. How long that "last part" is depends on how exciting the stage is: sometimes it's just the last two kilometers or so, sometimes the final climb of the day on a mountain stage.

It's always a tricky balance between showing too much (and dragging out the stage coverage unnecessarily) and too little (and depriving viewers of exciting action). In the 2004 Tour DVD, WCP strikes the perfect balance. The sprint stages are shown with enough lead-in to be really fun to watch, which usually means at least a kilometer, maybe more. The time trials are well edited, with useful summaries of the early arrivals at the finish line and increasing attention paid to the main contenders; in particular, the time trial up L'Alpe d'Huez is very well presented, managing to preserve a sense of suspense over the Ullrich vs. Armstrong battle. The mountain stages are handled well also, with the commentary dipping in and out before settling down for the finish.

Of course, the main problem with the 2004 Tour de France is that Armstrong never really had any serious competition for his sixth victory. The first half of the race (and the first two hours of coverage on the DVD) is the most interesting part of this year's Tour; after that point, there's really no suspense or tension for the overall race victory.

As is so often the case, the battle for the green points jersey is quite exciting, in fact considerably more so than the fight for the overall lead. Several top sprinters have their eye on the green jersey in the 2004 Tour, and the margin of victory remains tight all the way down to the line, exactly the way it should be for a thrilling race. Will it be Erik Zabel? Robbie McEwen? Stuart O'Grady? Another sprinter? Thanks to the solid coverage of this aspect of the race on the DVD, it's a lot of fun to find out.

After each stage is over, we also get quite a few interviews with the riders, and not just with Armstrong, either. From stage winners to contenders for the overall classification like Jan Ullrich, the nice selection of interview subjects gives us a great window into the race from the riders' perspective.

I was well pleased with the overall handling of the commentary for the 2004 Tour. WCP's usual commentators Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen return for the "live" portions of the commentary, and as always they do an excellent job of making the race fun and exciting. Gary Imlach handles the pre-stage introductions, post-stage wrap-ups, and the summary of the action before we get to the "live" material in each stage. While in the past I've been less than thrilled with Imlach's style of commentary, he does a very good job here. Perhaps he's mellowed out over the past few years (or perhaps I have), but in any case his style of commentary now works perfectly well, with his sense of humor manifesting itself in the occasional witty comment rather than in general sarcasm.

Viewers have the choice of either this four-hour edition of the race or a more comprehensive 12-hour edition. You can read the extended edition review for more details, but all in all, this four-hour cut does a really excellent job of delivering all the "good parts" of the race, with minimal fluff or fuss.

The DVD

The 2004 Tour de France four-hour edition is a two-disc set, nicely packaged in a slim single-wide plastic keepcase. The inside of the cover (visible through the clear case) is printed with a list of all the teams and their riders in the Tour.

Video

The 2004 Tour de France coverage appears in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio, as it was originally filmed and played on television. As always, the image quality reflects the fact that this is live broadcast footage captured under conditions that are not always optimal; there are some instances of picture break-up, but these are relatively few in number and are unrelated to the quality of the transfer. Overall, I think this Tour DVD's image quality is a bit uneven, and not as good as other WCP DVDs. Some shots look great, with a nice clear and crisp image, but other sections of the footage are much softer and display heavy edge enhancement. It's certainly watchable, particularly since the colors are bright and natural-looking throughout the DVD, and clearly better than VHS; it's just not as nice as I'd have hoped for.

Audio

The Dolby 2.0 soundtrack for the Tour commentary is clear, crisp, and easy to understand. Whether it's Liggett, Sherwen, or Imlach commenting, or a rider giving an interview, their voices always sound natural and clean. Even the shouts and cheers (or boos) from the crowd alongside the road get captured nicely in this soundtrack. The theme music is the same catchy tune from last year, and it's used perfectly: only in the material between stages, never while the race is actually running.

Extras

WCP has done a nice job with the special features here, presenting the "human interest" type material as bonus features rather than sandwiching them into the overall race footage. As a result, the main feature is more focused on the racing action, while still having the extra material right at hand for interested viewers.

On Disc 1, we get a short segment with Robin Williams (bet you didn't know he's a bike racing fan) doing amusing Tour-related impersonations in different accents. There's also a segment promoting Cycle Sport magazine, which is mildly interesting to watch, assuming you haven't already seen it on the half a dozen other WCP DVDs that it's turned up on.

Disc 2 has several interesting segments. A two-and-a-half minute piece on cycling legend Eddy Merckx, which includes an interview with his son Axel (also a professional cyclist), will be very interesting for both dedicated cycling fans and newcomers to the sport. Shifting more to current events, there's also a two-minute piece on "L.A. Confidential," the book that has Lance Armstrong in a rage over its presentation of circumstantial evidence that could suggest that Armstrong is using performance-enhancing drugs. Lastly, a segment about "Americans on the Tour" compares the success rate of U.S. riders in the Tour versus other countries.

The menus are nicely designed, with a chapter menu providing each stage with a description (starting and ending locations) while happily avoiding any spoiler images. The chapter stops are nicely done as well, with the non-race material such as rider interviews being given separate chapters, so viewers who just want to focus on the race can easily skip right to the start of the next stage.

Final thoughts

I was quite impressed with WCP's coverage of the 2004 Tour de France: considering that it wasn't an especially exciting race overall, the four-hour edition that they've put together is highly entertaining, bringing together all the most interesting parts, trimming the less exciting material, and generating a sense of enthusiasm for the race that's nicely sustained over the four hours of running time. For viewers who are new to cycling, I'd suggest that you start with the extremely exciting 2003 Tour de France. If you're already a cycling fan, though, then this DVD is well worth adding to your collection right away. Highly recommended.