A Sunday in Hog Heaven : Charity: The 11th-annual Love Ride in Glendale attracts 21,000 easy riders to a fund-raising event benefiting the Muscular Dystrophy Assn.

The good, the bad and the Uglys hit the road again Sunday for the nation’s biggest motorcycling party--the Love Ride.

More than 21,000 bikers, most of them astride powerful Harley-Davidsons and some from as far away as Canada, rumbled into Glendale early Sunday for the 11th annual Glendale-to-Castaic charity ride to benefit the Los Angeles chapter of the Muscular Dystrophy Assn.

Thousands more turned out to see celebrities, to mingle with the bikers before the run or to crowd along freeway overpasses while folks like “Ugly Carl”--a Canoga Park motorcycle mechanic on his eighth Love Ride--roared beneath them.

“It’s fun, it’s a good benefit, and it’s a great excuse to get together with 20,000 of my best friends,” said Carl, who rides with some 50 entertainers who call themselves “The Uglys.”

Last year’s ride raised more than $1 million for muscular dystrophy clinics and summer camps in the area, as well as for medical research, said Joan Rovegno, regional director for the association.

Longtime rider Frank Bizelli, 40, of Burbank, gave up the outlaw biker lifestyle many years ago, when he said he had only one charity: himself.

“I never would have done this for charity before,” he said. “I was in it for myself. In the past, had I raised money, I would have kept it for myself and stuck it up my arm. . . . But I’ve been clean and sober for the last six years.”

Dozens of celebrities turned out, including musician Axl Rose, actor Lorenzo Lamas, and the ride’s grand marshal, “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno. And, with the possible exception of Marlon Brando, the most memorable movie cyclist of them all was there: Peter Fonda.

“This is a timeless thing,” said Fonda, whose 1969 performance in “Easy Rider” helped to mold the image of the picaresque biker.

“When we get on the bikes, we’re not bald or fat or old,” Fonda said. “You get on a Harley and you’re still cool.”