Anger that the rest of the world is once again lampooning their sport and, perhaps more constructively, anger at the drug cheats who have stuffed things up yet again.

Posts on a Canberra cycling forum on Saturday were fairly typical of the anger and dismay all over the web in response to the latest Tour de France dope cheat scandals.

''I'm just outright pissed off,'' one poster wrote. ''Last year, when [Alberto] Contador time-trialled as well as the best of them I was very suspicious. But, this year, I wanted everything to be good. More fool me, I suppose.''

Another wrote, ''No doubt the shock jocks will use Le Tour as a way of pillorying all cyclists. Again,''

Anger is not usually a productive emotion, but in cycling's case it could very well be the best thing right now.

I cannot pretend to understand the mindset of the drug cheat, and it seems very few people in the sport are able to either.

But what we can all understand is the destruction the doping cheats continue to wreak, particularly when countless millions of non-cycling fans are tuning in for their once-a-year Tour fix.

Aussie cyclist Stuart O'Grady said he ''never wanted to see the three again.''

''As far as I'm concerned they should be hit with a lifetime ban. ''They can go and pick cherries or do some other job, I don't care.''

South African sprinter Robbie Hunter used his blog to attack his banished teammate Moises Duenas. He also ripped into Italian Riccardo Ricco, who won two mountain stages before being caught on Thursday, after suspicions surfaced very early on the Tour.

''This idiot Ricco who shoots off his mouth about how good he is ... [and] he goes positive. He needs to be punched in the nose for his arrogance,'' Hunter wrote.

It is unlikely such words will have any real impact on what are surely to be other rats in the ranks. Those who spend a career injecting drugs are not typically thin-skinned.

But the fact the rest of the pro-cycling community is being so vocal in its condemnation is a good sign.

A few years ago it would not have been. It would have been more likely to close ranks, say little and hope the situation blew over.

The 2006 Operation Puerto doping sting, followed by winner Floyd Landis being stripped of his title, meant it eventually had no choice.

The trouble facing the clean cyclists in the Alps this week, and the governing bodies, is convincing the world this is not just another typical year of the Tour, which has a history of doping incidents going back more than 100 years. Of the past 15 Tour winners, 10 have been tainted in some way by doping.

Their battle is to convince a rightfully suspicious world that the sport really has started the climb out of a long, dark valley.

Patrice Clerc, president of the Tour organiser, Amaury Sport Organisation, is trying his best.

''Do you prefer us to act like ostriches and stick our heads in the ground, or to act like we do now?'' he said over the weekend.

''We've taken a u-turn with our bike and it isn't an easy road we're riding, but the message is that we are winning the battle.''

Hopefully he is right. Hopefully the widespread anger will reinforce the will to pursue drug cheats.

If the outrage achieves that it will be a significant positive to come from the these latest positives.

jmoloney@canberratim es.com.au