Bikers on ‘Love Ride’ Revved Up Over Eclectic Oxnard Museum

Once the low rumble stopped, the oohing and aahing began.

Several hundred Harley-Davidson devotees from all over Southern California and elsewhere pulled up to an Oxnard industrial park Saturday to view their bikes’ ancestors, along with antique automobiles and wildlife trophies.

The Vintage Museum of Transportation and Wildlife--the private collection of former Los Angeles Times Publisher Otis Chandler--is only occasionally opened to the public. On Saturday, a line stretched out the door.

U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.), known as one of Washington’s few hog riders, has seen Chandler’s collection before but came back for another look.

“I don’t get tired of seeing it. I think it’s wonderful,” Campbell said. “It’s an unusual museum because it’s so eclectic.”

Indeed, there are Cadillacs from the 1930s, but there is also a 1995 Camaro. Big-horn sheep stand above a 1924 fire truck, and leopards appear to slink around a Kawasaki.

Chandler amassed the cars and bikes over decades, and the more than 100 animals on display are trophies from hunting trips around the world.

“It’s like collecting great art,” Chandler said Saturday.

The 45,000-square-foot museum is opened about once a week to groups and about once a month for charity benefits.

Proceeds from Saturday’s event go to the Love Ride Foundation, which for 15 years has organized the largest Harley ride in Southern California for the benefit of the Muscular Dystrophy Assn.

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Today, in the second stage of the event, thousands of bikers are expected to follow Jay Leno and Peter Fonda from Glendale 50 miles to Castaic Lake.

Chandler’s museum became part of the annual Love Ride weekend four years ago when organizers were looking for something for out-of-town participants to do the day before the main event, museum general manager Glenn Bator said.

“It’s just sort of snowballed from there,” he said.

This year’s Pre-Love Ride included a bike beauty contest and a performance by daredevil Francois Shetelat, who wowed fellow bikers with wheelies, tight turns and other stunts.

Few in Saturday’s crowd looked to be among the rough-riding crowd that might be expected at a biker rally. There was a line for cappuccino, and the Harley ladies auxiliary was selling brownies and lemon squares.

“Everybody’s well-behaved and everybody has fun,” Chandler said, describing many of those at the Pre-Love Ride as RUBs--rich, urban bikers.

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Craig and Carolyn Pedego, members of the Los Angeles No. 1 Harley Chapter, were among those who rode up from Glendale to see the museum and will be riding today to Castaic Lake. They and their two-wheeling friends participate in such rides for charity but also “so the women can show off their black leather,” Craig Pedego said.

Carolyn Pedego could see that her husband and his friends were envious of the museum’s collection.

“They wish they had it in their living room,” she said.

While the day was dominated by Harley-Davidson owners, other makes were also represented. Alan Volbrecht rode his Italian-made Ducati from San Luis Obispo to see the collection, which he called “mind-boggling.”

“Anything Italian is graceful,” Volbrecht said, admiring a Ducati racer painted in the red, green and white of the Italian flag--one of the 97 bikes on display at the museum.

But actor Larry Hagman liked a four-wheeled vehicle.

Walking through the museum with Campbell, Hagman pointed to a shiny, blue 1934 Packard, one of only six still in existence.

“When I die,” Hagman said, “I want to be buried in that.”