If you fall in the latter camp, be aware that cyclists have plenty to say about you in return and that the moral right is on their side. Cycling is after all, the leaner, meaner, greener mode of transport, but their route isn't always an easy one. Badly designed, ill-conceived cycle lanes and paths is the problem most commonly cited, as well as frequent disregard for cyclists from motorists and pedestrians alike.

According to the census figures in June, cycling (and walking) to work and school is on the decrease and improving the lot of cyclists does not have appeared to be a priority for political parties.

However, that may very well change now that Eamon Ryan, founding member of the Dublin Cycling Campaign, has taken up his position as minister for communications, energy and natural resources. The health and environmental benefits and efficiency of cycling aside, there's a wonderful romanticism about bicycles.

As the American novelist Christopher Morley professed, it should always be the vehicle of poets and novelists. And as HG Wells more memorably said, "Cycle tracks will abound in Utopia."

Here, five enthusiasts explain their twowheeled love affair.

THE CHIC CYCLIST
Joanne Byrne
MD of Presence PR

Has learnt: "Not to cycle with flowers because of the speed, especially if you've got delicate ones because you tend to lose half of them. Not a good idea."

I HAVE a Raleigh and it's as basic a bike as can be for getting me from A to B. It's got two wheels, it moves, it has brakes but, most importantly, it only has five gears . . . there was no point in me going for the 27-gear shift . . . and since I got it, it has been permanently in gear number three. I cycle to work every day. I live in Ballsbridge so, door to door, if the wind is with me, I can do it in about six minutes. I'm not a fairweather cyclist because I'll cycle through all weathers but I've just become a bit more conscious of cycling in bad weather because of people's brakes, my brakes, cars' brakes . . . and drivers have scant regard for cyclists at the best of times so if it's really bad I'll just hop on the bus. I don't have wet gear but I have a three-quarter length jacket that kind of covers me.

Bear in mind that I have loads of fashion clients so I have a rail of sample clothes if I get absolutely drenched. I can just throw on a jumper until I'm dry. I'll cycle to meetings with people who know me but sometimes it's just too much of a culture shock to see me arrive on my bike. Very rarely will I pencil in a meeting 10 minutes after I come into work on a bike. My hair is always up when I'm cycling and if I get red cheeks. . . I've rosy cheeks unfortunately so it's just a darker shade of rosy!

I'll cycle into town quite a bit on a Saturday if I'm meeting people, which has caused all sorts of problems when I decide to start purchasing. Then I look like some kind of Chinese person in Beijing trying to balance 25 boxes and me on the bike. I think the best thing I did when I bought the bike was I upgraded the saddle so I've got a very comfortable seat which means I can cycle for three times the length I could normally go for. I think Dublin has really improved in the last couple of years with the cycle lanes. If I could improve anything it would be that people who drive cars and lorries . . .

and anything that isn't a bike . . .

recognise that a cycle line is for cyclists. There have been a couple of times I've been pushed right up into a kerb. Certainly as a cyclist now I think I'm a better driver because I'm more conscious of people cycling.

THE CELEBRITY CYCLIST
Ray D'Arcy
Today FM broadcaster

First bike: "A hand-me-down from my cousin, Brendan Fox. The first one I bought was a Raleigh Triumph 20 and there's a picture of me in the family album standing beside it very proudly. I was a paper boy from the age of nine . . . a slave. I'm sure it was illegal to have children working at that age."

I DIDN'T start cycling out of any green motivation. I did it primarily because I was getting frustrated spending an hour or two hours in the car on the way home for an eight-and-a-half-mile journey, so I was fearful there was going to be a Michael Douglas in Falling Down incident. Then there are always the huge positives. You're getting exercise in; you arrive into work and you're fresh because the air's been blowing in your face.

I'm sort of between bikes. I had what they call a hybrid, which has thick wheels and it's a workhorse of a bike but it's nearly effed and I can't find one that suits me so I've started using one that I bought for a triathlon, with skinnier racer wheels. It's faster but you can't go down Eustace Street on it because of the cobblestones. I wear shorts and I have a high-vis vest and a jacket. It's odd because I've been cycling for six years and I've rarely had to use my rain gear but this year it's been in demand every second day.

You're the lowest end of the food chain when it comes to buses, taxis, cars, pedestrians because nobody pays any attention to you. Probably the greatest hazard are pedestrians because they see traffic has stopped, they don't consider that there might be a bike coming on the cycle lane so they step out.

And nobody pays any attention to the fact that there's a two-point penalty point to nose out into a cycle lane. I think that's the most common infringement of cyclists. And of course, probably the major issue is that cycle lanes are shite in Ireland and they deliver you out onto junctions, then they just go, 'Wah, fend for yourself !' If anybody actually planned these cycle lanes, they definitely wouldn't have designed them the way they are. Maybe now the Greens have a bit of power we might see changes.

I was in Helsinki earlier on in the year and cyclists and pedestrians and car drivers all commute in perfect harmony. It's a beautiful thing . . . they should be playing some kind of string music in the background. Part of the reason that we don't cycle more, particularly in Dublin, is because it's a hilly place, people are basically lazy and will use any excuse not to do it. There's no real incentive to cycle and the weather is shite.

I'm doing some research into putting a seat on the bike for my daughter Kate.

There's one that goes in the front, if you can imagine on the front of the crossbar, just below the handlebars, so the baby is between your arms. It means that you can see them and that if anything happens you can take some sort of action to make sure that they're safe . . . it doesn't' matter about yourself.

That's the next thing.

THE VETERAN CYCLIST
Charlie McCarthy
Retired schoolteacher

Favourite bike journey taken: "All around Ticknock and the Hellfire Club in the Dublin mountains."

THERE has never been a time in my life I haven't had a bicycle. When I was growing up in Cork in the 1940s it was nothing to do a roundtrip of 30 to 40 miles to see a football match. I remember cycling from Boherbue to Killarney for the 1945 Munster final (which Cork won).

I know friends of mine from Kilkenny, Laois and other midland counties used to cycle to Dublin for the All Irelands.

When I came to Dublin and started teaching in 1951 the bicycle was our main mode of transport. I never took the bus to school in those days and if you had football training in the Phoenix Park or Raheny you cycled.

We even cycled to the dances in the National or the Teachers' in Parnell Square.

(They were over by 11.30pm. ) Cycling was safer then, very few cars, no heavy trucks and, even though the trams had just finished, the tracks in O'Connell Street were a real hazard. I often got my wheel jammed in them.

I am retired from teaching 14 years now but I still use the bicycle quite a lot. For a while I used to work as a substitute teacher and I would use the bicycle if the school was just a few miles away.

No week passes that I would not use it . . . going to the bank, post office or to my allotment in Cappagh. People criticise students for not cycling but it would be almost impossible for primary-school pupils to use their bikes given the weight of books they have to carry every day.

I think my generation were a lot fitter than people are today but it is just the way life has changed. We had much more exercise. I look at my daughter who drives through traffic to a gym and gets up on a stationary exercise bike to get herself fit . . . and she has a perfectly good bicycle sitting in my garage for the past 10 years.

THE CHILD CARRYING CYCLIST
Dara Connolly (with Fiach)
Head of property and business development Temple Bar Cultural Trust

Advice for parents: "Cycle on the footpaths but definitely try it."

I'VE BEEN cycling with Fiach since he was nine months old and he's now seven years of age.

I live on South Circular Road, Dolphin's Barn end and I'll bring him into school or I'll bring him into town. Originally, I used to come down the South Circular Road, all the way down to a creche and I'd have two kids on the bike, a seat on the back and a seat on the crossbar. I don't see many other people cycling with kids and I probably know the ones that do, simply because you'd get a nod and a wink when you're doing it yourself. I certainly haven't seen any with two on the bike . . . people used to nearly stop their cars to see that.

I don't get nervous because I'm not the kind of person. I lived in Holland for a time and there you'd see two kids and the shopping and the lady cycling along on the bike, so that set the tone.

I'd use the footpaths a lot, although people aren't too happy about me doing that. I don't wear a helmet but Fiach would. I've been cycling all my life, I lived about two miles outside of Fermoy and I'd cycle in and out of town so it's just second nature to me. Fiach cycles too and he has his own little bike.

There's no encouragement at all for people to cycle with their children, absolutely zero. The biggest issue is the cycling lanes.

There's no punitive element to people driving in the cycle lanes themselves. There was a bus driver who actually blocked the whole cycle lane the other morning when I was cycling with Fiach and I had to get off the bike. You never even see a sign saying respect the cycle lanes or please watch out for cyclists.

I love cycling in the city but as regards cycling over mountains or stuff like that, I think it's a bit daft, there are better ways of doing it. The absolute joy of cycling around a city is fantastic . . . fresh air, exercise, seeing people, getting from A to B. In Amsterdam you can just take a public bike and it's the best way to see a city in my view. As regards a healthy lifestyle, I cycle into work in the morning and I'd be awake by the time I'd get in. Then after a hard day, it's a great way of getting rid of the adrenaline.

I had a very good bike that I'd brought from Holland stolen within six months of moving from Holland in 1998. I had a high nelly absolutely dismantled which was tied to a railing outside Wilton Terrace. But apart from that, I've been lucky.

My secret is that I don't get anything that looks flash; I get ones that look like absolute crocks, which people think there's no point in robbing. It works.

THE CHARITY CYCLIST
Tony Redmond
Secretary of the Fat Heads Cycling Club

Cycles because: "The independence it gives you, the adrenaline buzz, but mostly it's the fact that we raise over 20,000 for charity every year. That's the real feel-good factor."

THE Fat Heads Cycling Club was first established around 1990. At the time there was a group of us who used to cycle from Dublin to Belfast and back the following day for Cooperation North. Then I wanted to get more from the club . . . we were going to be cycling anyway so why couldn't someone else benefit from it? We decided to do it for charity, all the time.

There was a nucleus of about six members, building up to what we have now, which is about 25.

Generally on Thursday we have a long lunch hour in work of an hour-and-a-half so we can get in a 16- or 17-mile spin in the Phoenix Park . . . although the weather has been bad and people don't have the appetite for it. But usually from around April through to October we have a spin on the Sunday and arrange one country trip a month. For example, we would cycle from Dublin to Arklow and back the following day for Women's Aid and stay overnight. We do the Marie Keating in August and do the Ring of Kerry, with trips to the Isle of Man, Carlow and Arklow again and around the lakes of Blessington later this year.

I have a racing bike, which I got handbuilt and it cost about three grand. We have our own purposebuilt gear, which is made and manufactured in the UK because racing cyclists by their nature are very thin-bodied people and we're a bit rounder. I'd do about 120 miles a week travelling to and from work.

Motorists don't have any respect for cyclists and that's my experience. I don't to any degree blame the motorists but I think the authorities, from the government right down to local authorities, have a lot to answer for because their attitude to cycle lanes is ambivalent.

We're called the Fat Heads because we're a fun club and we have a lot of fun elements to us. All we like to do is get out, have a cycle for fun, slag each other on the way, give people a boost on the road who are struggling and raise money for charity. We're all big bulky men and we do have fat heads. You have to laugh at yourself before you can laugh at anyone else.