Choppers for Charity

They thundered here Sunday from all over, an eclectic mix more than 20,000 strong, united by their ubiquitous black leather look and passion for chrome, steel and speed.

At the Glendale starting point for this year’s Love Ride, the world’s largest charity event involving motorcycles, the mood seemed celebratory even before the rubber hit the highway. Now in its 16th year, the Love Ride has become a well-established annual tradition for some participants and an eagerly awaited rite of passage for others.

Sure, there’s all that live music and a pack of celebrities each year, but at its core, it’s all about raising money for good causes while doing something you love, participants said.

“I just love to be around motorcycles,” said Peter Fonda, star of Dennis Hopper’s 1969 biker odyssey “Easy Rider” and honorary grand marshal of the event. “I’m just glad I get to do it for charity.”

The Love Ride, which begins every year at Harley-Davidson of Glendale in the 3700 block of San Fernando Road, has raised more than $10 million, organizers said. This year alone, the event is expected to generate more than $1 million for the Muscular Dystrophy Assn. and the Reading by 9 literacy program sponsored by The Times.

“This is getting bigger every year,” said grand marshal Lorenzo Lamas, star of the syndicated television show “Air America.”

While some celebrities rode borrowed motorcycles, rock star Billy Idol rode an overhauled, much-repaired Harley-Davidson laden with memories. He has owned the bike for 14 years, he said, and it’s the “wide glide” machine he rode in the 1990 crash in Hollywood that nearly killed him.

“He resurrected himself and his bike,” said Idol’s friend John Diaz, a senior executive at MP3.com, an online music distributor.

For some in the crowd, the fund-raiser is their way of fighting back for themselves and for loved ones against a debilitating disease.

“When I think of this, it makes me cry,” said Denise Hays of Riverside, who suffers from reflect symptomatic dystrophy, a painful, potentially fatal illness that her husband Chuck described as a “sister disease” to muscular dystrophy.

Riding with her arms around her husband on his Harley, she thinks of where the money goes. “When they cure [muscular dystrophy], they can cure what I have,” Hays said.

Some participants said they hoped the event’s growing popularity would help change society’s attitude toward them and their two-wheeled addiction.

“People think bikers are mean and criminal and all that, but most aren’t like that,” said James Baertschiger, a carpenter from Hacienda Heights who belongs to a motorcycle group called “Righteous Ones.”

Many bikers these days are “people with good jobs who can afford to buy a $20,000 motorcycle,” said Lonnie Felker, the Los Angeles County deputy district attorney in charge of the D.A.’s Glendale office. Felker arrived Sunday morning atop his Harley--big and black with lots of shiny chrome--with Glendale’s mayor, 73-year-old Ginger Bremberg, sitting behind him.

Midmorning, the procession of motorcycles began vrooming out of Glendale and snaking up the Golden State Freeway.

The 50-mile trip ended with a barbecue, a concert featuring Sammy Hagar and a motorcycle trade show at Castaic Lake.

“This makes me so proud to be a motorcyclist,” said television actor Perry King.