20,000 Bikers Gear Up Again for Charity

For anyone who’s wondered what the sound of love is, it’s something like 20,000 roaring motorcycles and rock ‘n’ roll from 1969. At least that’s how Jim and Jennifer Tencza hear it.

That was the soundtrack Sunday for the 17th annual Love Ride, the nation’s biggest motorcycle fund-raiser. Wearing acres of black leather, droves of bikers revved up to raise money to fight muscular dystrophy and illiteracy.

The Love Ride has raised more than $10 million for various charities in its 17 years. Event planners said they expect Sunday’s fund-raiser to pull in more than $1 million.

Riders paid $50 a person to ride in the event, which donated money to the Muscular Dystrophy Assn. and Reading by 9, a literacy group sponsored by the Los Angeles Times.

While the 50-mile ride from Harley-Davidson of Glendale to Castaic Lake helped raise money, it also gave some of the riders a chance to reflect on their love lives and their sentimental ties to the event.

That’s what it meant to the Tenczas, who met in their hometown of Barrington, Ill., more than 25 years ago. At that time Jennifer’s mother told her to stay away from that rowdy biker, and she complied. She got off the back of Jim’s homemade chopper and didn’t ride for 25 years.

At the time, Little Jim, as he was called, hung around with a motorcycle gang with a dubious reputation, including bikers called Guardrail, Roach and Pappy.

After unsuccessful marriages to other people, Big Jim (he’s gained quite a few pounds) and Jennifer reunited in Illinois in April 1997. They were married later that year, and the couple, who now live in Redondo Beach, have made the Love Ride together ever since.

“Some people play golf,” Jim Tencza said, twirling his skull-and-eagle-wing ring around a finger. “We ride bikes, and we do it every weekend.”

Not everyone had such a happy ending to celebrate Sunday. Most made the ride to get together with fellow bikers and party with the event’s grand marshal, “Tonight Show” host and comedian Jay Leno.

“We respect Leno because he’s a bike rider’s bike rider,” said John Candor of Los Angeles. “Some of these other guys come out here, and it’s the only chance their bikes ever get to see the light of day. You look around out here, and you’ll see a lot of real riders who have lived their lives on their bikes. Leno’s one of us.”

Leno joked about the push for literacy among a group known more for their grizzled looks than their love of literature.

“What we’re shooting for is all Harley riders to be reading at the third-grade level by 2005,” Leno joked with the audience.