Tancredo said he was riding his Harley Davidson north on South Broadway near East Panama Drive in Littleton when a woman merging into the roadway from a McDonald's parking lot cut him off.

"She just didn’t see me," the 64-year-old Tancredo told TheDenverChannel.com Sunday evening.

"I tried to swerve to avoid crashing right into her," he said, but the woman's front bumper struck the back of his motorcycle.

"It sent me flying and the motorcycle flying about 40 or 50 yards along the ground," Tancredo recounted.

"It is the darnedest thing," he said. "I'm conscious. I'm just sliding along the pavement. It seemed like it was forever. And I'm thinking, 'I'm going to hit something or something is going to hit me.'"

Finally, he came to rest on the pavement.

"My bike was all messed up and my glasses are broken, my watch is broken. But no bones broken -- thank God," said Tancredo, who was wearing only jeans and a T-shirt.

"I didn't have a helmet, I have to admit," he said, adding that as a state lawmaker 30 years ago, he sponsored legislation making it voluntary for motorcyclists to wear a helmet.

"I am a lucky person. I got up and I thought to myself, 'I'm in one piece here, I'm vertical, and thank you, Lord,'" Tancredo said.

A witness told police, "I saw the bike go flying and I saw him bounce,'" Tancredo said, laughing.

Tancredo said he first called his wife, who was visiting her sister and mother in Montana, to say he was OK.

"She and her sister … started raggin' me about everything -- no helmet and you've got to go and get that (road rash) cleaned up because it'll get infected," he said.

The American Constitution Party candidate, who was riding home after a haircut and watching his grandson's high school baseball game when the wreck happened, said he first did an evening talk radio interview after the wreck. Then he went to the hospital.