The 'Coke Zero Bike', as it will be known, following the announcement of a new sponsorship deal between the soft drinks giant and the dublinbikes operators in the capital today.
The expanding Dublin bike scheme has signed a new commercial deal with Coca-Cola that has seen the drinks giant pledge €2 million over three years to the project in return for branding rights on the bikes that now operate across the city.
News of the new arrangement emerged today and follows the announcement last month that the Coca-Cola company would sponsor the new bike schemes in Galway, Limerick and Cork in a deal worth €3 million over five years.
Dublin's Lord Mayor Christy Burke said the bike scheme in Dublin had been "world class" since its launch in 2009.
“The scheme has exceeded all expectations and over seven million journeys have been taken so far. Dublin City Council always envisaged that commercial partnership would play an important part in funding the scheme’s expansion and in Coca-Cola Ireland, dublinbikes has found a fitting partner."
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Minister for Public and Commuter Transport, Alan Kelly TD said cycling had increased in Dublin by 40 per cent since the bike scheme was launched.
"The fact that dublinbikes will now partner with one of the world’s best marketing companies, Coca-Cola, shows the upward trajectory that cycling is going to go on."
He believed the partnership between Dublin City Council and international advertising company JCDecaux, both of whom run the bike scheme, and now Coca-Cola Ireland would serve the people of Dublin for a long time.
The London bike scheme is sponsored by Barclays bank, but the mounts are known as "Boris bikes' after Boris Johnson, who was mayor of London when the scheme was introduced.
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The Dublin deal with Coca-Cola is seen as much higher profile than the similar recent deals between the drinks company and the other cities now preparing to open bike schemes.
Because the Dublin bike scheme has grown so much, proven so popular and helped usher in a new cycling culture, the deal with Coke Zero will be seen as very controversial.
For many, the ethos of the bike scheme is that of getting people active for health and enjoyment reasons while also switching to more sustainable transport models.
In recent years debate around growing obesity levels has placed increased sugar consumption, especially in soft drinks produced by companies like Coca-Cola, at the centre of what is now becoming a public health epidemic.
For those reasons, the marriage of Coca-Cola's Coke Zero product and the Dublin bike scheme will be seen in some quarters as regressive.
Managing director of JCDecaux Ireland, Joanne Grant said Coca-Cola had “a long track record in helping to promote and encourage activity in everyday life”.
“Our scheme is already a huge success and JCDecaux looks forward to taking it to the next level.
“The combination of street furniture advertising and commercial partnership revenues enables us to operate such a successful scheme providing significant enhancement to the public transport system in Dublin”.
General manager of Coca-Cola Great Britain & Ireland, Jon Woods said the company was delighted with the deal and hoped it would bring the bikes to even more people.
“This partnership builds on our support for the roll out of the regional bike schemes in Galway, Limerick and Cork to make cycling accessible to thousands of people across the country and help more people be more active.”
The number of bikes in the scheme is currently trebling to 1,500 and there will be 100 docking stations across the city by the end of the summer. In the longer term, 10,000 bikes are envisaged.
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