Karl Poynter runs through his current bike set up and sessions a skatepark.

For the month of January, Eastern’s “Friday Flick” videos will be best of edits from their pro team riders. First up is Karl Poynter.

Vein, a direct to consumer BMX mailorder has been the target of much controversy in the BMX world since it’s launch a few months ago, with some brands openly trashing the concept on Twitter and many messageboard threads and comment sections exploding in debate. Finally someone got around to asking one of the riders involved for his opinion though, and here’s what Karl Poynter had to say:

“Let me try to explain this as best as possible. There is no stopping the power of business on the Internet. You can buy anything and everything from your computer. Every industry knows that more and more customers are buying online, and they are changing the way they do business. One way is offering their products consumer direct whether we IBDs like it or not and the BMX industry is no exception. Also, just about every BMX company has some type of online store. In my opinion, the biggest thing to hurt the IBD is the large mail-order companies. Does that mean there is no place for them? No–they provide a place for consumers to purchase products that don’t have access to a local shop. Also, most small brands wouldn’t survive without them. But no matter how you sugarcoat it, big mail-orders are the #1 competitor for the IBD.

There are many choices in BMX, and life for that matter. Supporting who and what you want is up to the individual. At Vein BMX, it’s a place with exclusive brands and great for the riders that don’t have a good local shop and wanting quality parts. At my shop, Hardcore Sportz, our scene from day one has always been about being positive and getting whatever you want from BMX. No image to uphold, just having fun riding bikes!

On a side note. The Internet brings many good things to everyone, but one of the main downfalls is that it gives anyone a place to voice an uneducated opinion about a subject they know little about. Not saying that’s the case for everyone, but it can go for a lot of people out there.”

You can check the rest of the interview over here, where Karl discusses other topics such as his upcoming Ezra freecoaster.

Phil Jones and Zach Rogers took a trip to Indiana to visit Karl Poynter for the weekend. For only having two days in town, it looks like they got a lot of riding in.

“Eastern Bikes, Karl Poynter has just moved out of New Castle to be closer to his shop, Hardcore Sportz that he runs with is brother, Kyle. This edit shows the spots that he grew up with. It’s full of creative riding of Karl and his friend Andy Sizemore. Good stuff for sure.”- Leigh Ramsdell/Eastern Bikes

Feast your eyes on the freecoaster mastery that is Karl Poynter’s “Death of Fun” DVD section.

We already knew that Karl Poynter was on the Ezra team (his introductory video dropped a little over a month ago) but now we know that both Dan Foley and Nick Anderson have been added as well.

We called it. The most interesting thing (to me) about this is that Karl is wearing a helmet riding a foot tall ledge and rail. I’m guessing he’s a permanent member of the helmet club now? We just may have a full fledged helmet revolution unfolding before our eyes. Here’s the info from the Ezra site:

“Karl Poynter is the first guy on EZRA. Here is what Karl said about it; “EZRA’s mission is to focus on high-quality, aesthetically pleasing parts that truly represent what BMX is about. And I’m proud to be part of it.” as we are proud to have Karl on the team!”

Now this is the kind of post I like writing. Just now I checked Vital and found myself watching a video of Cory Nastazio doing a backflip table. Then something caught my eye, an advertisement for a brand called Ezra welcoming Karl Poynter to the team. I clicked and the ad just took me right back to the Vital homepage. Interesting. Could this ad have been shown by accident before it was supposed to go live on the site? Karl’s Twitter mentions nothing of this new brand and a quick Google search doesn’t turn up anything of note. Typically, living in the BMX rumormill that is Southern California (and to a much greater extent, the OSS house) we hear about sponsor changes and new brands before they are officially announced but nobody I’ve asked has known what Karl was up to.

Could this be the new parts sponsor that Karl left Shadow for? I’m going to go out on a limb and say yes. Karl has mentioned that his signature freecoaster which was in limbo over at Shadow for years will now be released through his new parts sponsor but for now I’m wondering who’s behind this new brand. My first guess is that Karl’s frame sponsor, Eastern are doing a parts brand, but that’s just a shot in the dark. Perhaps we’re looking at the first major Jewish BMX brand since Ezra was a prominent character in the Hebrew Bible? Probably not. Either way, I’m sure that in light of this post, details will be made public very soon.

Karl Poynter, Zach Rogers and Josh Perry met up for a day of fun in North Carolina to film this week’s Friday Flick. They hit up spots in Raleigh, Chapel Hill and Durham, which is known as “The Triangle” to some. Eastern describes it as “Good times mixed with good moves“.