Hit-and-run victim gets back on her bike

A record-breaking cyclist is back on her bike after being seriously injured in a hit-and-run.

Christina Mackenzie, 45, had to learn how to walk again after she broke her pelvis in four places in a collision with a sports utility vehicle towing a high-sided agricultural trailer.

Despite a police appeal, the driver has never been caught.

On Saturday she embarked on her first road bike ride in Scotland since the crash in Stirlingshire last September.

Ms Mackenzie, from Lewis in the Western Isles, holds the women’s record time for cycling from Land’s End to John O’Groats.

Over the last four months, she has had to learn to walk again.

After weeks of strength building and training on a turbo indoors, she ventured outside for a 45-mile training ride which included going past the site of the crash in Kippen.

Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland’s Drivetime programme, she said: “It was really quite daunting.

“I just felt really twitchy, looking over my shoulders the whole time.”

Ms Mackenzie, a swimming development officer, admitted the collision “knocked my confidence completely”.

The cyclist said the two months following the accident were “just horrific, the pain that I was in, no mobility whatsoever.”

As her injuries made her housebound for the first month, Ms Mackenzie said her situation took its toll on her mental wellbeing and she was in “a pretty dark places at times”.

As well as breaking her pelvis, she sustained cuts to her elbow and ankle.

In October last year, Police Scotland released a CCTV image of a vehicle they wanted to trace in connection with the hit-and-run on the B822 on 27 September.

Police said a black Ford Ranger towing a silver Ifor Williams trailer was involved in the incident and failed to stop.

Ms Mackenzie said it was “frustrating” and a “complete disgrace” that the driver responsible had still not been caught.

She said the police told her that after making door-to-door inquiries, speaking to local farmers and attending markets, they believed the driver responsible was not local.

Police confirmed that inquiries were continuing.

Ms Mackenzie said she focused on the frustration of the driver not being caught for too long and is now looking to the future.

She is planning to compete at the International Island Games in Guernsey in July in the Road Race, the Time Trial and the Road Criteriums.

She believes the collision has made her stronger, because “on the physical and mental side, if I can get over that, I can get over anything.”