Going Hog Wild

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, billed as 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 expected to raise more than $1 million on Sunday.

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 the time, her mother told her to stay away from that rowdy biker, and she complied. Jennifer got off the back of Jim’s homemade chopper and didn’t ride for 25 years.

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

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

“Some people play golf,” Jim Tencza said, spinning 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. One rider popping wheelies in the parking lot flipped off the back of his motorcycle, which rammed into a half-dozen others. He was not seriously injured, but he drew the ire of the other bike owners.

In a more serious incident, a 22-year-old woman and a 30-year-old man who had participated in the ride were injured in an accident in Santa Clarita. The accident, the cause of which was unclear, occurred about 4 p.m. on the southbound Golden State Freeway just south of State Route 126, said California Highway Patrol Officer Frank Sansone.

The woman suffered a possible concussion, and the man fractured his wrist and leg, said Rose Morelli, nursing supervisor for Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital.

Most people participating in Sunday’s event made the ride to get together with a few thousand 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 its grizzled looks than its 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.

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Times staff writer Caitlin Liu contributed to this report.