Motorcyclists hugged on a mountain summit Sunday. A dead man’s bike sat in the center of it all.

The motorcycle belonged to Carl Sorensen, who died Thursday during a practice run up Pikes Peak. At a turn in the mountain’s top section, he flew off the edge.

Sunday would’ve been his third Broadmoor Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Since Sorensen wasn’t there, his friend Michael Applehans made sure his motorcycle was. And since Sorensen couldn’t race, the riders he was close to made sure they did so in his honor.

“If we would’ve backed out,” Sorensen’s friend, Adam Bauer, said, “he probably would’ve struck us with lightning.”

Bauer and some of Sorensen’s other friends, David Mobley and Jose Guedez, had finished a practice run to Pikes Peak’s summit when they first heard a rider crashed. When Guedez found out it was bike No. 217, he panicked. He knew that was Sorensen’s number. He didn’t want to believe it.

As they made their way back down the mountain, tragedy began to set in. The three men saw red tape and an ambulance at mile marker 19. They stopped their bikes and stood there for a while.

The area is what Bauer called a “no-fall zone,” almost certainly fatal.

“It felt like the mountains fell on top of us,” Guedez said.

When Guedez and Mobley returned to their campsite, they contemplated not participating in the Hill Climb. They sent an email to Hill Climb officials saying they planned on not showing up to Friday’s qualifying. But as they sat there, with the camping setup remaining how it was the night before, when Sorensen was there and alive, the men decided they needed to compete. They couldn’t sit around depressed.

Racing has served as a way to escape for some of them. Bauer said that in the 11 minutes and 25 seconds it took him to reach the summit on his bike Sunday, he “lived more than 99 percent of the population.” After Mobley went through a divorce and the death of his stepfather, he went to Argentina on his motorcycle – a yearlong trek.

But there was no escaping this. Reminders of Sorensen were everywhere.

Guedez felt the need to count down the number of turns until he reached mile marker 19. When he got there, he kept thinking he needed to slow down.

Before he began his race, Mobley saw a yellow butterfly on his bike, resting next Sorensen’s name. He called Sorensen’s widow over to see it. She told him to pin the throttle.

As he approached the site of Sorensen’s crash, Mobley considered slowing down. Then he thought Sorensen would make fun of him for doing so.

That was Sorensen, his friends said. He talked often about safety, but he wouldn’t have wanted the men to race any differently than if he were still alive.

When Mobley held the results sheet and saw he finished fourth in the lightweight division – top among rookies – he credited his film sessions with Sorensen.

“On one hand, I’m glad we all did this,” Mobley said. “On the other hand, I’m glad it’s over.”

Mobley said he expects the Hill Climb to be his last road race. Even before Sorensen’s death, that was the plan. As he gets older, he can feel the physical toll the races take.

Sunday might’ve been Applehans’ last time riding up Pikes Peak too. He’d been wanting to do it again since the 2013 Hill Climb, when he suffered a long list of injuries from a crash. And to do it in honor of Sorensen, who never quit checking in on his friend, even months after the crash? He said that was the most emotional and hardest thing he’s ever done.

“I got to finish for Carl, and a little bit for myself too. If I never do it again, now it’s behind me.”

When Applehans reached the summit, he got a checkered flag with riders’ autographs on it – a symbol of community, like the hug some bikers shared around Sorensen’s motorcycle, like the Carl Sorensen Memorial Fund that has received more than $30,000 in online donations.

This week was difficult, Bauer said, but it’s next week, when he won’t be in the company and comfort of other riders, that he fears more.

Sunday, he had his friends. When he got off his motorcycle, he rested his head momentarily against a rock and wept. Then he gave Guedez a hug. Their racing suits thumped against one another as they embraced.

“We did it, man!” Bauer said. “For Carl!

“For Carl!”