LAKE PLACID - As Jim Merkel bikes through the Adirondacks, through the fields, the forests, alongside the rivers and lakes, he is often silent. His journey, though, speaks volumes.
"We want our next generation, our kids, to have a more intact ecosystem than us," said Merkel, standing outside the Green Goddess grocery store in Lake Placid.
The author of "Radical Simplicity" and a Norwich, Vt. resident, Merkel is in the midst of an 18-day cycling trip consisting of 350 miles and 23 speaking engagements.
Merkel's message is that people would be better off living simpler lives that have less impact on the earth.
"A lot of us in America have quite a lot of excess, so if you look at your closets, your attics, your garages, you might be stumbling over excess," Merkel said. "And a lot of this excess clogs up our life and it clogs up the planet. It's unneeded garbage."
Merkel is accompanied by three others: Susan Cutting, former assistant director for Student Conservation Association's national Conservation Corps program; Ross Scatchard, an assistant nordic ski coach at St. Michael's College in Winooski, Vt.; and Tyler Durham, an environmental educator.
The group started in White River Junction, Vt. in early April and plans to finish their journey at the North Country Sustainable Fair at SUNY Canton this weekend. Merkel has been doing this tour nearly every summer since 1996, having logged 17,000 miles in cities and towns across the United States.
On Tuesday morning, his group spoke to students at Keene Central School; during the evening they met with the public at the Saranac Lake Free Library.
Today, which is Earth Day, Merkel will engage students at Paul Smith's College throughout the morning and afternoon. At 6:15 p.m., he will give a public presentation in the campus's Joan Weill Student Center.
The talk will be part of an afternoon and evening full of activities at the college that will include wood-fired hot tubs, food and music.
The cyclists planned to arrive at the college in the morning after a sunrise ride over Harrietstown Hill. They were planning on staying in Saranac Lake Tuesday night.
Merkel rides bicycles because it's an action that doesn't have a lot of negative impacts on the earth. Cycling creates less carbon than other types of transportation, doesn't put stress on roads and doesn't kill wildlife. Plus, it keeps you healthy, Merkel said.
"We're riding because cycling offers so many benefits to the earth," Merkel said.
Along the trip, the group has met with groups as small as one or two people and as large as several hundred. Some people have joined them on the road, while others listen or converse with them alongside it or in planned meetings.
"It's been energizing," Durham said. "We've been meeting people who go out of their way to do great things. It's great to be able to talk to those people and tell them there's other people out there and keep working because it's going to happen. Eventually, it'll keep spreading and big changes will happen."
Merkel said his message also goes counter to what the federal government has been telling people about spending money to stimulate the economy.
"We're feeling that's the exact wrong direction," he said.
Instead, he would like to stimulate people to live sustainable lifestyles.
"A lot of this consumerism hasn't served us," Merkel said. "We feel more stressed as times goes on. The myth of the industrial revolution was that we'd have more time, and we're all finding ourself busier. We work more than a Medieval peasant right now. Part of this being on the road is saying there's a better way."
For more information about the trip, visit www.cyclingForaSustainableFuture.blogspot.com.
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Contact Mike Lynch at 891-2600 ext. 28 or mlynch@adirondackdailyenterprise.com.
