‘Never Left Her Side’: Harwich Father To Ride Again In Pan-Mass Challenge For Daughter

BOSTON – Ryan Smith was biking in his first-ever Pan-Mass Challenge last summer when the urge to take his feet off the pedals and put them on the pavement for rest entered his mind on the second day.

He thought that day one, a leg of more than 80 miles starting from Wellesley, would be the worst part of the ride, but the back half of the trip on the Cape proved to be grueling. The hills of the national seashore up to Provincetown became brutal. 

Smith, though, had a reason to keep pushing forward in what is the world’s largest cycling fundraiser, an annual bike trip that last year brought in $78 million for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: his daughter. He and his wife Tracey’s child, Toni, had been diagnosed with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia a year prior. She was 3 years old. 

He kept biking.

“The biggest thing that keeps you going is the people,” he said.

On May 9, the Smiths, Harwich residents, traveled to Fenway Park for an event honoring the Pan-Mass Challenge’s Pedal Partners, pediatric patients at the Jimmy Fund Clinic who are paired with riders and teams. The timing was fitting. Toni had just ended her two-year leukemia treatment in March. Ryan will ride again later this summer.

In early 2024, Toni began having a sore ear. Her pediatrician diagnosed her with an ear infection and put her on antibiotics, but Toni wasn’t getting better. The Smiths went back multiple times to the doctor. They had a trip planned to Anguilla and wondered if they would be OK to go. The doctor said yes, Toni had been on antibiotics long enough, Tracey said.

In Anguilla, Toni neither felt nor looked well. She didn’t walk. The day after returning home, she slept until noon, then woke up with a fever. The Smiths set up an appointment for later that day with the pediatrician but ultimately brought Toni in immediately. One look at the doctor’s office was all it took to rule that Toni needed to go to South Shore Hospital for labs.

From there, the Smiths were brought by ambulance to Boston Children’s Hospital, where Toni went through all sorts of tests. She had an ultrasound of her organs. The emergency physician came in and said Toni was being admitted to the ICU, where she spent five days. She had four blood transfusions.

Toni was afterwards transported to a room on the oncology floor, where she and her parents spent more than a month.

“One of us never left her side,” Ryan said.

After the 35 days of treatment put the leukemia in remission, Toni began two years of outpatient care at the Jimmy Fund Clinic at Dana-Farber. That finished March 23. Two years, one month. The Smiths celebrated with a get-together in Harwich last Saturday.

There’s never a good time for a cancer diagnosis; for Toni, Ryan and Tracey, it was the worst time. Tracy had just started her own law practice. Ryan had to leave his job. The Smiths drove to Boston up to four times a week for treatment at the beginning, eventually dropping to once or twice a week. Ryan and Tracey saw their daughter, now 5, undergo chemotherapy, spinal taps, steroids. Toni was put under more than 20 times. Ryan, one day, had two of his buddies, who are bald, come over and shave his head. Then they shaved Toni’s head too.

That year, Toni became the Pedal Partner for a Pan-Mass Challenge group called Team Shuck Cancer. In 2025, Ryan was talked into riding with the team as well. 

Inside Fenway Park’s Aura Club during the Pedal Partners event on May 9, Pan-Mass Challenge CEO Jarrett Collins said the ride’s water stop in Lakeville is one of the things he’s most excited about every year. The mile leading up to the stop is lined with photos of and signs made by the pediatric patients at the Jimmy Fund paired up to teams. They — kids like Toni — wait at a tent to greet the riders — people like Ryan.

“Seeing the happy faces in the Pedal Partners tent,” Collins said, “seeing the reunions between those Pedal Partners and the teams who ride on their behalf, and realizing that the world is an amazing place and that there's hope for everyone in this room.”