Vintage Harleys Turn a Museum Into Hog Heaven

They came, in a caravan of roaring, gleaming steel and chrome, for the bikes: glistening Harleys, dozens of them, with tailpipes that put mirrors to shame.

“They’re rolling sculptures--poetry in motion,” said Willie G. Davidson, admiring a display of 1920s olive green and burgundy Harley-Davidsons at Otis Chandler’s Vintage Museum on Saturday.

He should know. As his grizzled hands and clunky silver rings suggest, the 60-something Davidson has been a biker for half his life. He is also the Harley-Davidson vice president in charge of design, the grandson of the motorcycle company’s namesake.

“Harley-Davidson is my life, that’s all I do, design ‘em, ride ‘em, collect ‘em,” he said.

Surrounded by about 100 like-minded bikers Saturday, Davidson was in his element.

The gathering at the Vintage Museum in an Oxnard industrial park was one of a handful of preambles to today’s Love Ride 13--a charitable event expected to raise more than $1.25 million for the Los Angeles chapter of the Muscular Dystrophy Assn.

After paying $45 in donations or pledges, thousands of bikers today will grind through the 50-mile Glendale-to-Castaic route. The money helps pay for muscular dystrophy clinics, summer camps and medical research.

Before the ride bike, aficionados, including Jay Leno and Peter Fonda, rumbled into Oxnard to pay homage to the hulking machines and the people who ride them.

Kneeling almost worshipfully before a crimson 1928 hill-climber, its fat wheels encircled in chains, 42-year-old Andy Mendez of Oxnard explained the Harley fascination.

“I look at that exhaust pipe,” he said, marking four inches with his fingers, “and it’s just that long. I think of what it sounds like to start it. Then you want to ride it.”

Riding motorcycles is more than a hobby, it’s a way of life, added Mendez, his arms an indigo and black tapestry of tattooed skulls, chains and spider webs.

A “hog” is not just 500 pounds of metal, leather and chrome, said Lori Gunia, 34, a professional motorcycle racer.

“It’s like apple pie and baseball,” said the black-booted, navel-pierced Reseda resident. A Harley “is freedom on the road.”

*

A biker since she was 17, Gunia has stuck with the sport through a broken leg and a busted kneecap. “Will I ever quit?” she scoffed. “No, never, that thought has never crossed my mind. I live and breathe Harleys.”

Attracting the most attention at the museum were two replicas of the motorcycles from the 1969 movie “Easy Rider,” which embodied the spirit of a freewheeling biker on the open road.

“They’re pretty good for copies,” said biker Top Hat, 53, wearing a leather vest studded with enamel and metal pins from dozens of road trips. “I rode in here listening to the theme song, ‘Born to Be Wild.’ ”

Even before watching “Easy Rider,” which he’s done a dozen times, the Ojai resident was a Harley devotee.

“The best thing about Harleys is that they have soul, they’re beautiful and the girls like them too,” he confided.

Pointing out his own personal “pumpkin-and-cream” detailed Harley, “Easy Rider” star Fonda said the motorcycle is his favorite mode of transportation.

“You can’t take a horse on the road,” said the actor, who lives on a Montana ranch and loves to fly fish, eat barbecue and ride motorcycles. “It’ll run your vet bills up to geeze and . . . it’ll try to bite you. A Harley doesn’t do that.”