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.

Viewers who are interested in watching this historic race on DVD have the choice of two versions: a shorter four-hour edition, or this set, which offers 12 hours of footage. If you already know about the race and just want to compare the four-hour and 12-hour cuts, you can skip ahead to the "extended edition" section; until then, I'll just be discussing the race itself.

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.

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.

The extended edition

The 12-hour edition of the 2004 Tour de France has a full eight hours more footage than the four-hour cut... so where does it all go? As with the earlier regular vs. extended DVD editions of the Tour, by far the bulk of the additional time is spent in the mountains, with several stages getting more than two hours of coverage. Some of the other stages have been expanded slightly, but it's just on the order of one or two minutes here and there.

Not all of the additional time in the 12-hour version is racing footage. We also get a few more of human-interest type clips, like an interview with the motorcycle rider who holds up the chalkboard with the time splits for the riders in a breakaway to read. While this sort of thing is interesting, it really belongs in the special features section, not sandwiched into the race footage. Again, that aspect of the material is handled better in the four-hour cut, which focuses more closely on the actual race during the main feature, with the "extra" material in the special features section.

Does the experience of watching the race improve with the extended edition? Not really; in fact, I think that the opposite is the case, since the 2004 Tour was not a particularly interesting one. When aggressive attacks and tight challenges are the order of the day, spending this much time on the race makes sense; just look at the exciting 2003 Tour for an example. But when the main item in dispute is not "will Armstrong win" but rather "how many minutes will he win by," the merits of lavishing so much time on the race are less clear. One of the strongest points of the well-edited four-hour DVD edition is that its brisk pacing actually generates and preserves a sense of excitement for the race, which is lost in the much more drawn-out 12-hour cut.

Even though I'm a pretty hard-core cycling fan, I found the four-hour cut of the 2004 Tour to be the more entertaining choice. The 12-hour version does contain all the "good parts" of the four-hour cut plus some worthwhile extra time (maybe an hour's worth, spread out among all the stages) that enhances a few of the stages, but the total running time is overkill for a race that frankly wasn't very exciting. All in all, the 12-hour cut is most suitable if you're a "I can't get enough" type of cycling fan, particularly if Lance Armstrong is your favorite rider or you're especially fond of the Tour de France.

Here's a breakdown of the individual stages and running times. Stages that have substantial added material have been marked in bold.

The DVD

The 12-hour edition of the 2004 Tour de France comes spread across six DVDs, nicely packaged in a plastic keepcase that manages to be relatively slim while also holding all the discs securely. 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

For the most part, the special features on the 12-hour edition are exactly the same as in the four-hour edition, though in this case they're spread out over the six discs of the set. 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. One of the more interesting segments is 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 one addition to the 12-hour set is a five-minute montage-style piece dealing with Phil Liggett; it's by far the least interesting extra, so you're not missing anything by going with the four-hour cut.

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

One way or another, cycling fans will want to add the 2004 Tour de France to their collections. Even though it wasn't one of the more exciting editions of this famous race, it's still... the Tour de France! And a historic one, at that, with Armstrong's record-breaking sixth win. I don't think that the race really merits 12 hours of coverage, though; the shorter edition is better paced and makes the race feel more exciting. While the 4-hour edition of the 2004 Tour got a "highly recommended," I'll go ahead and give the 12-hour edition a "recommended" for those viewers who just can't get enough Tour.