The Dublin Transportation Office have mapped Dublin’s cycle lanes on their site here. According to DTO director John Henry:
We hope the maps which show on-road and off-road routes, will help persuade non-cyclists to venture out on their bikes for the first time and they might encourage experienced cyclists to try out new parts of Dublin when out for a cycle.
The Dublin Bike Blog 
I wonder if Mr Henry has ever actually tried to ride a bike in on of the, now mapped, lanes of death?
I’ll be sticking to cycling on the road where I can be seen, and therefore, not runover.
True enough. I was cycling from Knocklyon towards Tallaght, across the M50 – the lanes there have to cross the slipway roads down to the motorway, treating the cyclist like some errant pedestrian who has decided to try out his Christmas present. The DTO report says Dublin had 690km of cycle lanes – so presumably 345km then, if they’re counting the lanes on each side of the road. It’s very, very low, whether you think cycle lanes are any good or not.
Thats a bit cheeky counting both sides of the road, eh?
One of the big problems, in my opinion, is that planners are over reliant on technologies like GIS and are too comfortable designing bike lanes from a swivel chair. Because they never actually ride the lanes themselves they don’t realise how dangerous they are.
The world looks very different traveling on two wheels at 20kmph than it does in Google Earth.
I had a another experience of retarded planning last week on the Stillorgan Dual Carriage-way.
There’s a junction between cycle lane and dual carraige-way at the turn off for Stillorgan village. The cycle lane just continues across a slip road, for motorists turning left off the dual carriage-way, after snaking around the corner so its a lottery whether or not there’s a car barreling down the hill at 80 klicks and turning right across your path.
Its crazy that its safer to cycle on the inside lane of a dual carriage-way than to risk it in the cycle lane.
The only way one could possibly sleep with such bad design is if you honestly hadn’t the faintest comprehension of what its like to ride a bike that wasn’t made by elves in lapland or a holiday rental.
On the subject of bad cycle lanes, I had the dubious pleasure of using the Nutgrove-Churchtown-Dundrum cycle lane this morning. It turned the experience of riding my lovely bike into something resembling the sensation of riding one of those 1940s High Nelly bikes, completely suspension free and with very hard tyres. It’s probably got the worst surface of a bike lane I’ve ever used, and what’s worse, there are points around Nutgrove where it just disappears and then reappears. Aaargh.
check out hte lanes on the belgard rd in tallaght, only a quarter of them in width possible to cycle in, rang the council, they cleaned them before christmas apparantly, only they have nt since june!!!! tink ill get back in the car!!! its cosier when cycle from lucan only to get almost runover after newlands cross.
This is the new link for this site:
http://www.dto.ie/ctbl/
Hope the facilities will start improving…..
Hi I’m moving to Saggart later in the month and I was wondering what would be the best way to cycle in to town for work, city centre area.
The red cow roundabout looks abit scare to cycle through, are there cycle lanes?
Hey Richard, I looked at the cycle-lane map, and there doesn’t seem to be much choice – going via the Red Cow is the most direct route. I’ve never cycled it, so I don’t know if there are lanes there, and if its usable for bikes. A couple of alternatives do suggest themselves: before the Red Cow, take a left through Clondalkin and follow the new Nangor Road under the M50. This route then joins up again with the Naas road. You could also go from Saggart via Tallaght, taking either the Greenhills Road or Ballymount towards the city, or you could also go via Templeogue from Tallaght.
Just found this blog, great idea! I have a new bike (under the Government’s Cycle-To-Work scheme) and I’m looking forward to giving it a serious try-out on Monday: Knocklyon to Howth and back.
I agree with people’s comments re the quality of the cycle lanes, they’re pretty bad overall. I sometimes cycle from town to Loughlinstown and that particular route is very poor, very bumpy and not at all clearly marked.
Hi
I’m visiting Dublin for a long weekend in early November (2010). We’d like to hire bikes and cycle from our b&b in to town each day. Advice would be appreciated on good areas to stay with easy cycle access to the city and if you know of cycle hire options. Thanks v much, Jane.
Hey Jane. The best option, if your B&B is near the city centre, is to use the Dublin Bikes service (http://www.dublinbikes.ie/). A large number of bike stations are dotted around the city centre, and you can buy a 3-day pass to use the bikes for €2. After that, it’s free to use each bike for half an hour, after that a charge of 50 cents applies for 31-60 minutes, €1.50 for 2 hours, €3.50 for 3 hours, and so on. Although the charge is relatively minor, you need to use a credit card to complete the transaction at one of the 14 bike station terminals (screens and keypads at bike stations, which are similar to ticket machines at train stations).
The station map is here: http://www.dublinbikes.ie/All-Stations/Station-map
I think this is the best option for cycling within the city: bikes are cheap and widely available.
B&Bs in the Ranelagh, Rathmines, and Harold’s Cross areas would be close to the bike stations, and also within walking distance of the city centre.