Bike Buds founders Eric Morehouse (left) and Phil Horne.
Twice a week or so, about 20 people gather in Richmond to embark on a bike ride. Their routes, usually 20-25 miles, span city streets, gravel and natural terrain.
About halfway through the ride, the group stops. The riders light joints and pass them around for a smoke break that group leader Eric Morehouse describes as “super communal” before returning to the trail.
These are the Bike Buds, a club started last year by Morehouse and his business partner, Phil Horne, to combine just that: bikes and buds.
“It’s a double entendre. It is about friends, but it’s also about smoking weed,” Horne said.
When Horne moved to Richmond about two years ago and met Morehouse by chance, the two started talking and hatched the idea.
Many cycling clubs tend to either be about nonstop racing or are slow and relaxed, Horne said. The duo aims to lead longer rides at a quick pace while intentionally making time to stop and appreciate the ride. That’s what the smoke breaks are for.
“There’s definitely a space in between that for people that do want to bike farther and faster but still want to enjoy the places that they bike through and enjoy the company and the people and the camaraderie of riding together,” Horne said.
They also hope to advocate for the normalization of marijuana use in everyday life. Morehouse said that many people base their beliefs about cannabis on a culture of laziness but that the group is the exact opposite. Many of Bike Buds’ riders are “elite-level athletes,” he said.
After spending three months perfecting their branding, Bike Buds launched about a year ago with a 100-mile ride. Now, Morehouse and Horne lead rides every Tuesday evening and Thursday morning.
The group is free and open to anyone — “everybody’s a bike bud,” Morehouse said — and has 30-40 regulars. Each ride averages 20 people and Horne estimates there are about 100 bike buds scattered around Richmond.
Bike Buds’ merchandising includes t-shirts, rolling papers and other products. (Photo courtesy Bike Buds)
While both said they work on and think about Bike Buds constantly, they each work full-time at other jobs. Morehouse co-owns a real estate brokerage, The Morehouse Group, with his wife, Colleen, and also runs a business called The Key RVA that educates people who want to learn how to grow marijuana. Horne works at a local bike shop, Outpost Richmond, where he does sales, photography and merchandising.
Horne and Morehouse have built a business under the Bike Buds brand. They sell T-shirts, stickers, decals and rolling papers containing the logo and soon will launch a line of full racing kits.
Bike Buds also has a partnership with the Carytown-based coffee shop Roastology, through which the group sells various selections of its Wake ’n Bike blend. The club also has a deal in the works to make a high-end titanium bong, which Morehouse said will be transportable and easy to clean.
Currently, though, the two aren’t making any profit on Bike Buds. The revenue from each product launch goes straight into the next.
The duo also dreams of taking the brand into a brick-and-mortar location. Once they clear financial hurdles, they look to open a combination coffee shop and bike repair shop where they’ll sell a select coffee menu and some bike parts, and people can come by for regular maintenance and repairs on their bikes. The shop also would act as a home base for the cycling club.
Morehouse said they have big ideas about opening several locations. Horne added that Richmond has a thriving market for both coffee and bikes.
“There’re very large holes in the city that are not holes in the marketplace but rather just holes in the product being provided, both in coffee shops as well as in bike shops,” Horne said. “It is something that we are wanting to do sooner than later. We know that it’s a concept primed for success.”
Bike Buds founders Eric Morehouse (left) and Phil Horne.
Twice a week or so, about 20 people gather in Richmond to embark on a bike ride. Their routes, usually 20-25 miles, span city streets, gravel and natural terrain.
About halfway through the ride, the group stops. The riders light joints and pass them around for a smoke break that group leader Eric Morehouse describes as “super communal” before returning to the trail.
These are the Bike Buds, a club started last year by Morehouse and his business partner, Phil Horne, to combine just that: bikes and buds.
“It’s a double entendre. It is about friends, but it’s also about smoking weed,” Horne said.
When Horne moved to Richmond about two years ago and met Morehouse by chance, the two started talking and hatched the idea.
Many cycling clubs tend to either be about nonstop racing or are slow and relaxed, Horne said. The duo aims to lead longer rides at a quick pace while intentionally making time to stop and appreciate the ride. That’s what the smoke breaks are for.
“There’s definitely a space in between that for people that do want to bike farther and faster but still want to enjoy the places that they bike through and enjoy the company and the people and the camaraderie of riding together,” Horne said.
They also hope to advocate for the normalization of marijuana use in everyday life. Morehouse said that many people base their beliefs about cannabis on a culture of laziness but that the group is the exact opposite. Many of Bike Buds’ riders are “elite-level athletes,” he said.
After spending three months perfecting their branding, Bike Buds launched about a year ago with a 100-mile ride. Now, Morehouse and Horne lead rides every Tuesday evening and Thursday morning.
The group is free and open to anyone — “everybody’s a bike bud,” Morehouse said — and has 30-40 regulars. Each ride averages 20 people and Horne estimates there are about 100 bike buds scattered around Richmond.
Bike Buds’ merchandising includes t-shirts, rolling papers and other products. (Photo courtesy Bike Buds)
While both said they work on and think about Bike Buds constantly, they each work full-time at other jobs. Morehouse co-owns a real estate brokerage, The Morehouse Group, with his wife, Colleen, and also runs a business called The Key RVA that educates people who want to learn how to grow marijuana. Horne works at a local bike shop, Outpost Richmond, where he does sales, photography and merchandising.
Horne and Morehouse have built a business under the Bike Buds brand. They sell T-shirts, stickers, decals and rolling papers containing the logo and soon will launch a line of full racing kits.
Bike Buds also has a partnership with the Carytown-based coffee shop Roastology, through which the group sells various selections of its Wake ’n Bike blend. The club also has a deal in the works to make a high-end titanium bong, which Morehouse said will be transportable and easy to clean.
Currently, though, the two aren’t making any profit on Bike Buds. The revenue from each product launch goes straight into the next.
The duo also dreams of taking the brand into a brick-and-mortar location. Once they clear financial hurdles, they look to open a combination coffee shop and bike repair shop where they’ll sell a select coffee menu and some bike parts, and people can come by for regular maintenance and repairs on their bikes. The shop also would act as a home base for the cycling club.
Morehouse said they have big ideas about opening several locations. Horne added that Richmond has a thriving market for both coffee and bikes.
“There’re very large holes in the city that are not holes in the marketplace but rather just holes in the product being provided, both in coffee shops as well as in bike shops,” Horne said. “It is something that we are wanting to do sooner than later. We know that it’s a concept primed for success.”
Richmond needs an affordably bike service shop.
Richmond has ReCycles, Rag and Bones Coop which moved buildings and should be reopening soon, and Wheel Simple. Those are all focused on affordable service.
cycling is not for the budget conscience
So we’re building all these bike lanes for wealthy people?
Everything the city builds is for wealthy people.
Like the Pulse lanes and public housing rebuilds and renovations?
Really? I think you might need to smoke a joint. This isn’t Bend OR.
People who ride bikes for sport aren’t the only people who need a bike shop.
We’ve got to get away from that mentality- riding bikes for transportation is incredibly cost efficient for individuals and for local governments and we should be encouraging it as much as possible.
When I was 13 we did our own bike maintenance. We even made some Frankenbikes, and a friend of mine, no mechanical genius either, made one quite by accident with odd part that made it VERY efficient in converting the force — his bike was UNFAIR!
My upvote of this countered a downvote …. I can’t see why anyone would disagree with this — biking is fantastic for so many reasons but it needs to be safer — I remember when I worked on a trauma floor of a big hospital and there was a beloved high school teacher that biked everywhere for years who got hit bad… it was really sad. But riding a bike instead of driving places is like the Henry Ford adage of: Chopping your own wood warms you twice. It also has a lighter footprint. The only non-cost efficient things about… Read more »
What does this even mean?
Is it legal to ride a bike on public roads while under the influence of drugs?
Biking….Pot….what could go wrong?
OMG so funny. You guys are missing the point of this article. It’s totally satire.
Really?
I’ve kinda studied the use of MJ since I was 13 and I have to say that I would never have thought that even serious exercisers would mix this particular drug cocktail with exercise.
For all the cliched reasons.
Caffine has been shown to be a very good aide, esp when consumed BEFORE exercising, which is why I would see all those discarded energy shot packages littered in front of my house when I lived a block up from a YMCA….
Seriously, I would not want to do things this way.
I think the li’l feller on the right is from Reno911
Drugs and exercise is now a business model? So when a pothead swerves in front of my car on a bike, I kill him or he causes me to hit someone else, we’ll just call that “super communal?” Another great contribution from the millennial class.
The whole westside of downtown Richmond is a weird smokers high hippy town. Bicyclists are injured or killed every year in this area and now they want to endorse hazy high minded cyclists 🚴♂️ 🚗