Colorado Springs mountain bike racer Christine Irelan remained conscious after being struck by a semi truck as she pedaled up Ute Pass toward Woodland Park.

The accident happened on a narrow and twisting section of Hwy 24. She was thrown into a rock wall. She remembers the truck wheels rolling over and chewing up her bicycle.

She was down. She was broken.

But not for long.

"Thank God I'm here to talk about it," Irelan said on Saturday at the Cheyenne Mountain Explosion Time Trial at Cheyenne Mountain State Park.

Irelan, an anesthesiologist, sustained broken ribs and a fractured foot. She had road rash from head to toe. An injured shoulder required surgical repair.

She shakes her head in wonder. She doesn't know how she avoided more serious injury, though she has lingering health issues.
"I'm very lucky I didn't have some neurological problem," she said. "My helmet was cracked like an egg shell."
At the time, she was relatively new to bike racing. Her first race was the "Lap the Lake" in Leadville in 2007. She won and was hooked on the sport.

After the wreck, she figured her racing days were over. But Irelan, a petite woman with a polite and humble manner, didn't give up. In fact, she hardly missed a beat. Just two months later, in July, 2008, she climbed above the clouds to win the Mount Evans Hill Climb Championship.
And it has been an amazing string of victories since then. The woman who tangled with the semi truck and lived to tell the story, is undefeated in 20-plus mountain bike races over the past two years. In fact, she's never lost on single track.
"And here is the thing," she said with a grin, "I'm 43."
She is a two-time national champion, winning the cross country title as a 40-plus Cat 3 in 2009 and Cat 2 in 2010.
On Saturday, she won the women's Cat 1 time trial in the Mountain States Cup series opener.
"I think it was the accident that got me into mountain bike racing," Irelan said. "I was afraid to ride on the road after that. I'd rather take my chances with trees and rocks. That's more of a fair fight."

And she spends a lot of time playfully duking it out with the trees and rocks on Colorado Springs' wonderful miles of single track. When asked to name her favorite trails ... that proved to be a tough question.

"Oh, I like so many of them for so many different reasons," she said. "It's hard to pick, we are so blessed."

Asked about her goals for 2011, she said she'd like to "continue to improve my mountain biking skills, be competitive at the CAT 1 level, and return to Nationals."

And then she thought about it a little more.
"I think what I really want to do is enjoy being on the bike," she said. "I can't begin to tell you what it means to me."