Cat Incident Demonstrates Importance of Bike Helmets

(MYFOX NATIONAL) - It may or may not have been black, but the cat that crossed German pro cyclist Matthias Kessler's path last week while training in Majorca definitely brought bad luck .
Add Kessler's decision not to wear a helmet and the result was horrible: It was nearly fatal.
Kessler, 30, a former rider for the Kazakhstan-based team Astana, swerved to miss a cat, crashed headfirst into a wall and suffered a fractured skull.
The cyclist had surgery to remove blood clots and physicians induced a coma to help reduce brain swelling. Kessler was initially listed in critical condition, but is now recovering and his status has been upgraded to serious.
"The doctors are confident that he will recover," Karheinz Kessler, the rider's father, told the Nürnrberger Nachrichten newspaper in Germany.
Kessler is fortunate. Not all cyclists have been so lucky.
The International Cycling Union, the sport's governing body, now requires riders to wear helmets in races, with the exception of the last few miles of mountaintop finishes when speed is slow. But the same practice is not always followed in training. MORE