Organisers hope this week's conference will rally cyclists in Irish cities again, writes Paul Cullen.
It might seem far-fetched now, but the bicycle could one day go the way of the horse carriage and steam engine and become extinct.
In Irish cities, no less than in most other urban centres, it is already a minority activity, practised only by the hardened few. The number of Dubliners commuting to work by bicycle is one-third of 1986 levels, while secondary schools have seen a fivefold drop in bike use by their students.
Half of all primary students are driven to school, while more Leaving Certificate girls drive to their classes than cycle.
Affluence, a bad image and competition from trucks and cars have joined the traditional bugbears of bad weather and bad roads in driving potential cyclists off the road and into other forms of transport.
Yet the health benefits of cycling are widely recognised, now more than ever. Further, Irish planners have finally come to recognise that cycling can play some part in alleviating the awful traffic congestion afflicting our cities.
Since 1997 about 300km of cycle lanes have been laid in Dublin, as part of a variety of measures designed to get people back on their bikes.
But as John Henry, Dublin Transportation Office chief executive, admitted yesterday, the design of many of these tracks left much to be desired. The first cycle tracks required cyclists to dismount at every junction, a layout Mr Henry described as "wacky".
A further mistake arose when local authorities concentrated their building programmes in far-flung new suburban areas, because that was the easiest place to put them. All very well in itself, but the overall result was a series of disconnected tracks with no central focus.
"The result was a disjointed network. If we'd started from the centre of the city, we'd have a complete network of cycle lanes by now," said Mr Henry.
Making the city centre safe for cycling means radical solutions have to be found in areas where different transport modes are competing for limited space.
" In some streets, cyclists will have to be given priority. Instead of keeping to the side of the roadway, the cyclist will travel in the middle, with motorists following behind," Mr Henry said.
He would implement this proposal "in the morning" if he could; however, the ultimate decision rests with local authorities.
There are plenty of examples at this week's Velo-City conference of how other cities are taking radical steps to improve the safety and attractiveness of cycling. Denis Baupin, transport mayor of Paris, told delegates cars took up a "barbaric" amount of space in his city.
A huge increase in bike lanes and extra-wide bus lanes, contraflow lanes for cyclists, a virtual ban on cars entering some central areas and a network of bike rental shops are among the measures now being introduced in Paris, according to Mr Baupin.
The Belgian city of Ghent gives children free helmets and reflective jackets to encourage cycling.