Like rented accommodation, bikes are no longer only for students. Gone or going is the day when you didn't want to be seen dead on a bike once you'd landed your first serious job, seeing it as some sort of very public kickback to less affluent days. Getting a job usually meant that sooner or later, you'd be getting L Plates too and relegating the old volocopede to the shed.
More jobs have meant more cars. Lots more cars, going very slowly. There's more money about than ever before, but a constant - and growing - core of folk are still choosing to cycle to work.
"I've been cycling to work for about 15 years," reports Lucy McKeever, who is a press officer with the Abbey Theatre. For the last five years, her journey into the centre has been from her home in Harold's Cross. "I cycle because I can't bear buses and I like to know how long my journey will take me.
"I feel more independent when I'm cycling, and having my bike once I'm in town means I can get on it at lunchtime and go just about anywhere. I cycle in all weathers; I'd stop doing it if I took the bus on rainy days. It's as much about habit as anything else. Even though I might be tired at the end of the day, if I got on a bus I know I'd just slump. Cycling home invigorates me. I've had the same bike for 15 years, just a wreck with a basket. I don't have a car.
"I do think more people are cycling now. Whenever I stop at lights, there's always lots of other cyclists there with me. I'm never alone. The worst thing is definitely the pollution, especially from those sightseeing buses, because they're always stopping to look at things but they keep their engines running all the time.
"The traffic has definitely got much heavier in the last few years, particularly in the evenings. The worst days are wet ones. Motorists are grumpier on wet days, trying to squeeze you in against the pavement. I end up hopping up and down off the pavement. Cycle lanes? On my route, the only cycle lane is the bit between the yellow lines and the pavement!"
Ciaran Cuffe, an architect and Green Party Councillor, lives in the centre of Dublin. He has not been as lucky as Lucy, as he is now experiencing ownership of his fifth bike: the others were all whipped. "I used to lock my bike to parking meters, but it's getting harder and harder to find one now," he explains. "It's so annoying to see all those huge carparks everywhere, yet so few bike rails.
"I do have a car, which I take on longer journeys, so I see the city from both perspectives. When you're a driver, you get annoyed with bikes that have no lights and which weave in and out of traffic, and when you're a cyclist, you have to deal with the exhaust fumes and aggressive drivers.
"The only real exercise I get is from cycling around town for work: I go all over, especially for council meetings. Cycling for me is a way of combining business and pleasure. You experience the city more fully on a bike. You're not roofed in, like you are in a car; you get all the smells and sounds of the city - the best and the worst.
"It seems like there are less people cycling into town these days, but more people cycling around town. I'd love to see some guards back on bikes, doing a bit of community policing. They could get to any part of town on a bike, quickly and quietly, and without the razzamatazz of sirens.
"I've had far too many mishaps on my bike. My worst memory is of holding onto the door-handle of a car to stop myself being dragged under it when I was run up against a pavement. You develop a second sense on a bike - and you need it to survive in this city."
Caitriona Ward runs her own PR company of the same name, which deals with clients in the entertainment world; fashion, film, and television. "I don't know how to drive - I lived in New York for years and you didn't need to be able to drive there," she says.
"I live in town and cycle almost everywhere for work, usually about five or six miles a day, since my clients are all based in different places. Apart from how quickly I can get around, cycling is great exercise. I've had this mountain bike for two years: the bike I had before that was stolen the first week I had it.
"My friends are used to me turning up on a bike now. I arrive at places in town quicker than they do in their cars. In fact, a few of them have bought bikes too. The worst thing about cycling is the pollution. And the rain. I do cycle in the rain, but I seem to have been caught in a lot of fairly vicious rainstorms lately.
"Drivers have so little respect for cyclists. They just pull out infront of you and think you don't have a right to be on the road at all. Pedestrians are just as bad. I had a bad fall last summer, when a pedestrian came running out between two vans and knocked me flying on Dame Street. I still have the scar.
"I wear trainers, leggings, and a fleece. I don't wear a helmet. If I have to go to a grand event for work, though, I'll get a taxi. My Gucci heels and my bike just don't go together!"
John Flynn, a creative director at the Peter Owens Advertising Agency, has been cycling around Dublin for close on 20 years. "I cycle from Blackrock to work in Fitzwilliam Place. It takes about 20-25 minutes and that's a completely reliable time.
"I have a car, but I don't use it to get to work, In a car, the journey takes about three times as long, sometimes longer: essentially, arrival times are never predictable with a car these days. I'm not prepared to sit in a car for that long, and the public transport is just so bad, it's not an alternative. The fitness aspect of cycling is part of it too.
"In the early days, people thought I was a bit of a lunatic to be cycling, but now they're used to it. I'm an all-weather cyclist. The car fumes and exhausts are awful, but I actually think the days of smog were even worse; some evenings I would be cycling home through a fog of smog.
"Whoever designed that cycle lane on the Stillorgan dual carriageway can't have been a cyclist. It's a total joke - just lines on a footpath, which pedestrians have to walk across to get to bus-stops, and it doesn't have enough bike symbols painted on it. And if you're in the cycle lane, you have to give way to traffic - since you're essentially on a footpath - but if you're on the road, you don't. Which means that half the cyclists don't use the lane anyway.
"You really have to concentrate on a bike. It's fairly stressful. Most cars, for no good reason, turn left without indicating. I've learned always to expect the unexpected: I wear a helmet now, I've had so many run-ins. I do notice a lot more people are cycling these days, which definitely must be a reaction to the frustration element from traffic."