Germans pay to scrap old bikes

Oliver: I suppose you're right. But I just don't envision Berlin as the kind of place you see lots of people riding around on Apollo's from Halfords. I would have thought they'd be a bit more savvy on bikes than the average british consumer.

They will be marginally more savvy than British consumers, yes--but there are an enormous number of shit bikes in Germany, too, that are just as bad as the worst bikes you can buy in Britain--after all, they're probably not made either in Britain or Germany, so that there's little about them that's specific to these countries. There are bike discounters that sell total crap.

In Berlin, it might be different than in Mannheim, but this is only a tiny little scheme in Mannheim, not in Berlin (it's a scheme run by the city, not a national scheme). I know a fair bit about Mannheim, having been born there and all, and it is definitely a city where cycling is low on the agenda, where few trips are made by bike (excellent public transport, a highly walkable and compact city centre on the plus side, high car ownership like everywhere in Germany and intimidating ring roads and large car parks on the minus side), so any initiative is welcome. And fair play to them, they will have gained quite a lot of positive exposure for Mannheim without much media coverage.