Reports on the safety of cycling and research investigating factors thought to impinge on cycling risk and safety are often complex, insufficient and, at times, contradictory and inconclusive. Amongst this ambiguous understanding of matters of risk and safety in relation to cycling, the provisional aim of this study was to explore how cyclists themselves deal with matters of risk in the context of Dublin. Classical grounded theory methodology was employed over the course of the study. Data collection involved 28 qualitative interviews which took place simultaneously with data analysis, in which grounded theory procedures were adhered to; namely, open coding, selective coding, memoing, theoretical sampling, and theoretical saturation. Emerging from data collection and analysis, it was conceptualised that dealing with conditions of ‘precarious entitlement’ to public space is a main concern of utility cyclists in Dublin. That is, cyclists in Dublin perceive an entitlement to public space that is precarious to exercise as a cyclist in practice. In order to negotiate such conditions, cyclists in Dublin can engage in ‘privatising vulnerability’. Namely, they can make their vulnerability a matter of personal rather than shared responsibility, prioritising their perceived safety over matters of entitlement, responsibility and fairness through particular modes of action. Furthermore, cyclists in Dublin can engage in practices of ‘provoking responsibility’, in which both subtle and conspicuous actions are taken in order to provoke a sense of responsibility in other public space users to respect a cyclist’s entitlement to public space and vulnerability within conditions of precarious entitlement. This theory reveals a new form of structural vulnerability, a ‘state of nature within a state of civilisation’ and a problem of accessibility to public space. Moreover, it conceptualises modes of action in an urban context that involve social withdrawal, submission, and individualisation in public space, as well as active and ongoing negotiation between citizens of life in common and recognition, alongside efforts to appropriate and produce public space.