This article is part of the Brixen Bike Papers – a 41 Publishing initiative from our 2025 Think Tank in Brixen, created with the goal of building a better bike world.
A series of essays diving into the uncomfortable truths, hidden opportunities, and real changes our industry needs. Click here for the overview of all released stories.
Table of Contents
From alarm to action
The mood in the industry has shifted.
Bad news, shrinking budgets, uncertainty, layoffs, regulation debates, cautious investors. Panic is in the air. And that’s understandable. Panic is a natural response when familiar structures stop working.
But panic itself isn’t the real problem.
The real problem is what it does to our thinking.
When the nervous system goes into alarm mode, vision narrows. Perspective collapses. Possibilities disappear. What remains is tunnel vision: fewer options, more perceived threats, less courage. Movement slows. Decisions become reactive. Most people don’t fail because times are hard – they fail because fear makes them smaller.
And this is the current paradox in which we are in:
At the very moment when clarity, creativity, and boldness are needed most, panic produces paralysis.
Panic is a signal. Let’s use it.
It’s the smoke that tells us something is burning.
What we are witnessing is not a sudden collapse of demand or relevance. It’s a collective stress reaction. The industry is confronting the fact that many of the structures, assumptions, and growth models it relied on no longer work.
Panic emerges when reality moves faster than thinking.
That doesn’t mean the market is broken.
It means the system we built has run out of answers.
In that sense, panic is information. It marks a transition. The danger is not the smoke, but treating it as proof that the building is beyond saving.
Panic is not a weakness. Paralysis is.
Hard times have always been part of progress. No industry has ever transformed in comfort. Growth happens under pressure. Capability is built in resistance.
Periods of stability rarely produce meaningful change. They reinforce habits, protect inefficiencies, and reward repetition. Pressure does the opposite. It exposes weaknesses, forces prioritization, and accelerates learning.
Bad times are not an interruption of progress. They are often the conditions under which progress becomes possible.
The uncomfortable truth is that most of what needs to change in this industry has been visible for years. It simply didn’t feel urgent enough. Pressure creates urgency. And urgency, when met with openness rather than fear, becomes momentum.
But only for those who are willing to stay open.
Open to learning.
Open to questioning old assumptions.
Open to doing things differently instead of doing the same things more carefully.
Right now, there is an enormous opportunity in the bike world. Not because the market is easy – but because so many are frozen.
If you can’t see opportunity, it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. It often means your field of vision has narrowed.
What the first 10 Brixen Papers really showed
Across ten papers, many topics were discussed: technology, regulation, communication, growth, media, responsibility, power, narratives, identity.
But underneath all of them lies one simple truth:
Nothing has to change.
The industry can carry on as it has before.
Repeating the same patterns.
Chasing the same metrics.
Making the same compromises.
Entering the same cycles again and again.
And if that happens, the results will also repeat.
What the Brixen Papers did not show is what will happen.
They showed what’s possible.
Not as a forecast, but as a choice.
They didn’t offer predictions or guarantees. They demonstrated alternative ways of thinking, organizing, and acting. Possibility does not create pressure. It creates responsibility.
Because once it becomes clear that something else is possible, the comfort of ignorance disappears. From that moment on, inaction is no longer neutral. It becomes a conscious decision.
This is precisely what large parts of the industry still struggle with: taking responsibility. Waiting for others to make the hard calls. Copying what appears to work elsewhere instead of finding the courage to define a path of their own.
The papers don’t demand agreement.
They remove excuses.
What happens next is no longer a question of information.
It’s a question of choice.
Because while many will stay in place, some already aren’t.
Your cleverer competitors are changing. Quietly. Without announcements. Without big words. They are questioning things others still defend. They are simplifying where others add complexity. They are making clearer decisions instead of safer ones.
Doing nothing is still a decision.
It’s just not one you control.
This is not about spending more. It’s about deciding differently.
In times like these, the reflex is almost always the same:
Cut budgets. Delay decisions. Wait for better conditions.
But transformation rarely requires more money.
It requires different choices.
Same effort.
Same resources.
Different priorities.
Better energy.
Strategy alone won’t save anyone.
Discussion alone will not move anything.
The industry is not short on discussion. It is short on clarity.
There has always been a kind of shared, informal understanding that many things were not working. But because it was never spoken out loud, never owned, and never translated into action, it remained useless.
Call it knowledge if you want. In practice, it functioned as noise.
What is missing is not awareness, but the courage to turn vague understanding into clear decisions and real movement.
Strategy only becomes real when we carry responsibility for its implementation. Without ownership, even the best ideas remain theoretical. Talking creates the feeling of progress, but rarely the reality.
The best strategy is only as good as its implementation.
Ideas without action are entertainment.
Conversations without ownership keep us busy without progress.
Execution is the moment where intention becomes visible and will drive results.
You can always change
One of the clearest patterns we’ve seen over the last months:
There is no lack of intelligence in this industry.
There is no lack of ideas.
There is no lack of talk.
What is missing is coordinated, courageous action.
Real change will not come from endless panels or perfectly aligned consensus. It will come from a small number of players who decide to move first, accept friction, and lead by example.
Change will not be democratic.
It will be led, and then copied.
Change never starts with consensus.
It starts with someone moving.
Real change is rarely comfortable or widely supported at the beginning. It creates friction. It challenges routines. It exposes uncertainty. That’s precisely why most organisations wait for alignment that never fully arrives.
Leadership is not about eliminating friction.
It is about moving despite it.
Those who are willing to move first shape direction. Others follow later, once risk has been absorbed and uncertainty reduced.
The warning is this: in the current state of the industry, not taking a risk, staying safe, and focusing on survival is the riskiest option of all. Because others will move on. Faster. Smarter. And with the first-mover advantage.
What follows is not stability, but displacement.
Those who wait do not preserve their position.
They make space for others.
Space for those who move.
For those who create new rules, new facts, new reference points.
And ultimately, new conditions in which the cautious must then operate, not on their terms, but on someone else’s.
The good news is simple:
If you truly want to change, you can always change.
A note on our role
At 41, we don’t believe this shift will be created by waiting for structures to fix themselves. We believe it will be shaped through action, collaboration, and new forms of leadership.
That’s why we’re choosing to focus our energy on people and organizations who are ready to turn insight into implementation. Not louder discussions – but real steps forward. Not more opinions – but better decisions.
As part of this, we’re preparing the Top100 Leadership Summit in Leonberg from 22nd to 24th of April: a laser focused, invitation-based format for those who are willing to take responsibility, challenge old patterns, and actively shape what comes next. This is for the first movers, the innovators and the new generation of brands who are ready to change the game for the better.
It’s not open to everyone – intentionally.
Not because change should be exclusive, but because it requires a serious will to drive change. We’ve heard too many promises in the last years and we’ve seen too little action. What a waste of resources and energy.
If you feel addressed by this paper – and are willing to take responsibility rather than wait for direction – you can apply to be considered for the Top100 Leadership Summit.
This is an application, not a registration.
The Moment of Choice: When Panic Demands Direction
Panic is a signal.
Not to stop, but to recalibrate.
Fear is a warning most systems can still process. Panic is different. Panic is the last signal. It tells us that time is no longer abstract, and that delay now comes with consequences.
What defines this moment is not the presence of panic.
It’s what we do next.
Because panic carries a trap: if we don’t consciously choose direction, we slip into survival mode. And survival mode optimises for short-term relief, not long-term success. It leads to defensive decisions, recycled behaviours, and the false comfort of doing what we’ve always done, only faster.
We’ve seen this before.
Easy decisions today make tomorrow hard.
Hard decisions today make tomorrow possible.
This moment won’t define the cycling industry by how loud the fear was, but by who stayed clear-headed enough to act while others froze. While many will retreat, delay, or wait for reassurance, a smaller group will look forward and move with intent.
Not by shouting louder, but by deciding earlier.
By choosing direction before accelerating.
By taking responsibility instead of outsourcing it.
By becoming reference points in an industry that is critically lacking leadership and credible examples.
The door is open.
The question is not whether change will happen.
Change is already underway.
The real question is who will move first. And in doing so, who will help usher in a new phase for cycling. One where the bicycle is finally allowed to realise the full potential it has carried for decades, but too rarely been given the space, the courage, or the responsibility to reach.
This article is part of the Brixen Bike Papers – a 41 Publishing initiative from our 2025 Think Tank in Brixen, created with the goal of building a better bike world.
A series of essays diving into the uncomfortable truths, hidden opportunities, and real changes our industry needs. Click here for the overview of all released stories.
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Words: Juansi Vivo, Robin Schmitt Photos: Diverse