美國人和自行車

All the American families today have cars.Some families may have two or more cars.Fathers drive to work.Mothers drive cars to do shopping.Some children may also drive to school.

今天，所有的美國家庭都有汽車，有些家庭有兩輛甚至更多的車。爸爸開車去工作，媽媽開車去購物，有些孩子開車去上學。

More and more bikes were made and sold out between 1960 and 1970.In the past two years,millions of Americans suddenly began to buy the bicycle as if it were a great new invention.And there are more than 70 million bikes in the United States today.That’s more than two for every three cars.

從1960到1970年，越來越多的自行車被生產并售出。前兩年，美國好幾百萬人突然開始購買自行車，好像那是一個偉大的新發明似的。今天，美國有七千多萬輛自行車，平均每三輛汽車就有兩輛自行車。

Of course,the bike has been popular for more than 150 years,and this isn’t America’s first bicycle boom1.Americans began to like and buy the bike in the late 1800s.Workers made two million bicycles in 1897.Then with the coming of the cars,people became less interested in bikes.For many years after that,bikes were popular only with children and a few adults.

當然了，自行車已經流行了150多年，這并不是美國首次出現的自行車熱。美國人在19世紀末就開始喜歡并購買自行車了。1897年，工人生產了兩百萬輛自行車。后來，隨著汽車的出現，人們對自行車不再那么感興趣了。在那之后很多年，自行車只在孩子和少數成年人中流行。

Now,people have got to know that cars will bring about air pollution to the earth.Once again they turn their eyes to bikes.Some people are getting fatter and they bring the bike back to their homes.Some students ride bikes to school because they don’t have enough money to buy cars.So there are still many bike lovers in America.

現在，人們已經知道了汽車會給地球帶來大氣污染，他們再次把目光投向自行車。有些人變胖了，他們就把自行車買回家。有些學生因為沒錢買汽車就騎自行車上學。因此，美國仍有許多自行車愛好者。

More than eight million bikes were sold in the United States last year and one third of them went to adults.The year before,only 15%of new sales were for adults.

美國去年售出了八百萬輛自行車，其中有三分之一賣給了成人。而前年，只有15%左右的新自行車賣給了成人。

1.boom[bu:m]n.繁榮，激增