An injury kept Steven Branfman from riding with his team in this year’s Pan-Mass Challenge, a race he has been doing since 2004. But his experience from the sidelines was perhaps the most emotional since he started riding in remembrance of his son Jared, who died of brain cancer in 2005.

“Not only was I frustrated and sad because I couldn’t ride it,” Branfman said, his voice breaking, “but because I was experiencing the PMC the way Jared experienced it — not being able to walk and not being able to ride.”