There are about 1m more people in Paris than Dublin, but both cities have a similar number of taxis. Yet making it to bed after a long Saturday night in the City of Light is never a problem. No crowds gather on the main streets and there are no shivering queues at taxi ranks. After nine months pretending to be a Parisian I've finally found out why: thousands of them saddle up for a sobering bike ride home.
In September Dublin will benefit from a free-bike scheme similar to the one run in Paris. It's not a reason for me to go back to Ireland, but it will make my eventual return that bit easier. The Paris Velib has been one of the highlights of my time here. It's great for leisurely cycles on sunny days, hopping between appointments or taking the healthy route to work without having to deal with a rainy cycle home. No aspect of the service is more appreciated by the natives than its ability to get them home, free, when darkness descends and public transport has finished for the evening.
One January night, when all the ponds surrounding the Louvre had frozen over and people's faces were masked by their breath, I was standing outside a brasserie, miles from home, carrying a coat that had been rendered useless by a pitcher of beer. Two taxis refused to cross to the left bank. So I used the Velib. Who needs a cab driver when just a few yards away stand eight knights in shining, mudguarded armour? Bicycle number six transported me to my apartment in 20 minutes, my deadweight coat in the front basket. It was the cementing of a beautiful love affair.
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Tipsy cycling is unlikely to feature on Dublin city council's triumphant leaflets when it launches the service in September but there are a lot of people in Paris who have yearly subscriptions for this purpose alone.
And when you consider that the crise financiere was but a mild breeze in the French capital, impoverished Dubliners reeling from the financial tornado are hardly likely to turn up their noses at a cheap ride home.
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Before I left for Paris last September I had heard wonderful things about the city's free-bike scheme and was keen to be a part of it. I have always been a cyclist; I was born into a family of them. Visitors could tell our house by the bicycles chained to the garden gate. Inherited passion aside, I was hard pressed to think of a better way to see the city, scooting down the grand boulevards, circling Notre Dame and the Louvre, zipping past Sacre Coeur.
The move from being a full-time cyclist in Dublin to one in Paris involves more than crossing to the other side of the road. Here, people with bikes are not identified by their method of transport because just about every Parisian is a part-time cyclist. They have a non-committal attitude towards the vehicle. If it's sunny on the way to work but raining on the way home, or if they head off full of energy but are feeling lazier by the end of the day, the bike is not a two-way burden.
When all the talk of Velibs for Dublin eventually began to amount to something, I was still basking in my newly acquired Parisian smugness. I was busy whizzing across the Seine, laughing at the idea of such continental sophistication at home. I nodded my head to the tune of the Irish naysayers. "That's all very well on the continent but it'll never work here." "Who'd want to rent a bike in the pissing rain, anyway?" "If they're not all nicked or fecked in the Liffey, I'll eat my hat."
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Fear not. The same negatives being aired in Dublin were all debated in France three years earlier, and critics have spent the intervening period eating their hats as the scheme has proved such a hit.
Not that there are no problems with the Paris scheme. Slide the bike into a slot at the station incorrectly and it will not register as returned. Explaining this to a phone operator later can be difficult and it can take a while to retrieve your 150 deposit.
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Finding a bike at the edge of the city at peak times can be a problem, but not quite as difficult as finding a slot to return it to in the centre. I have frequently spent as long trying to get rid of the thing as I have pedalling it. At that point the bike starts to cost as well as irritate, as a euro is taken from your account for every half hour after the first one has expired.
The scheme promised for Dublin seems a pale imitation of its Parisian predecessor: 40 stations against Paris's 1,450; 450 bikes in contrast to 20,000; and a much smaller area covered by the service. But don't join the naysayers. The Paris scheme was also relatively modest at the outset. In just two years the number of stations and bikes has doubled and the service has been extended into the suburbs.
The success in Dublin will be down to its users. So think positive, saddle up, open your mind and remember: there are many similarities between the Spire and the Eiffel Tower. On your bike!