Leather and Chrome : Motorcycles: Harley-Davidson owners have their biggest gathering west of the Rockies--an excuse to ride, show off and share Hog tales.

LAUGHLIN, Nev. — Welcome to Hog Heaven.

On their Fat Boys, their Softtails and their ElectraGlides, 20,000 Harley-Davidson aficionados roared and rumbled into this riverfront gamblin’ town over the weekend, paying homage to the icon of the born-to-be-free lifestyle.

They were celebrating the 11th annual Laughlin River Run, an excuse to ride, to show off, to share Hog tales and compare tips and tricks on how to customize their riding machines, the most popular super-heavyweight motorcycle in America.

In 1982, 496 people showed up. This year, each of the nine casino hotels in town was reportedly booked full, and the RV lots and hotels across the river in Bullhead City took the overflow.

Organizers say it is the largest gathering of Harley-Davidson owners west of the Rockies, and it attracted riders unable to resist a love fest in leather and chrome from as far away as Iowa.

The quarter slots and craps tables were playing second fiddle to the Harley-Davidson museum on wheels, the Harley-Davidson factory demo rides, the Harley-Davidson fashion show, the Harley-Davidson trick ride exhibition.

It’s seductive, said the Harley-Davidson owners--the executives, the housewives, the lawyers, the oil field workers, the insurance salesmen and the riders with their full beards and ponytails who wear leather vests like sausage casings.

If they aren’t out riding in swarms of 25 or 50, they’re huddling around the trade show booths with their displays of leather jackets, chrome accessories, stick-on tattoos, leather jackets, wheels, leather gloves and chaps, jewelry, brackets-and-bolts and leather jackets.

And they’re strolling through the casino lots where the thousands of Harleys are parked for public display. Every Harley owner is convincedhis--or hers--is the best, but Harley owners selflessly heap praise on one another’s machines.

“ Hoooo-eeey! “exclaimed one admirer in leather, gawking at a white motorcycle. “Oh man, he’s got that lowered waaay down!”

The soundtrack for this show is that unmistakable, guttural, gurgling rumble of the machines themselves, a symphony of harmonizing pipes that is the Harley signature.

“It’s a, uh, growling kind of sound. Grr -something,” said Suzanne Tainowitz, who was selling welding rods for aluminum repairs.

“It’s a woof-woof-woof , a deep one,” offered Diane Lestor, an American Airlines flight attendant who rides behind her husband, a San Diego insurance salesman.

“It’s a rumble roaring, a rrr or, uh, rrmmmm . No! It’s this: rahoom , raHOOM ,” said Dollie Silvera. The 52-year-old Studio City woman and mother of four bought her Harley after divorcing her husband of 22 years.

Cheryl Trentacosta said it’s a sound that “sets the hair up on the back of your neck.”

It was for the love of that sound, and in tribute to the only made-in-America motorcycle, that people flocked here over the weekend. For some, it was their only chance to test-ride a new Harley. The 90-year-old Milwaukee-based company is operating at full capacity to produce 350 new bikes a day, a Harley spokesman said. Each of those bikes is pre-sold to a dealer--who, more likely than not, already has sold the annual allotment even before deliveries arrive.

“I ride a BMW, which is an engineering model, light years ahead of Harleys,” said Jim Lestor of San Diego. “But I want a Harley. There’s no other sound like it. And I had to come here to ride one because I can’t find a dealer who’s got one in stock.”

A couple of men from San Diego showed up Thursday afternoon, perched on their bikes in a sea of glittering steel and hot leather adorned in studs and fringe.

“I’ve got to have my toy to play with,” Fred Henning said of his UltraClassic ElectraGlide. It cost him $16,000 “plus a couple grand in goodies,” including the fringed leather mud flaps and leather tassels from the brake grips.

“It’s the closest I can come to flying,” remarked his friend Russ Shepley. “And being here is a chance to give the wife a vacation--back home.”

Henning is 66; Shepley is 70. Between the two, they’ve got 98 years of motorcycle riding experience.

Burly oil field worker David Richardson of Santa Maria looks big and bad in his leather vest--his arms drip of R-rated tattoos. But with the tenderness of a new father showing pictures of his firstborn, Richardson pulls out two snapshots. This, he says, is my rebuilt, ’51 pan head.

So what’s this love affair with a bike?

“There’s something about the V-twin, the rumble, the feeling. There are bikes that are technically more advanced,” he said. “But if you have to explain what it is about a Harley, then you just don’t get it.”

David Barks put it this way. “You sit on a Japanese bike, but you sit in a Harley.”

And you luxuriate in its image.

These bikes come with names airbrushed on their gas tanks. There’s Shadow and Superman, Magestic and Flashback. Their personalized license plates declare “HOGG PWR,” “HOG HAVN,” “HRLY HVN,” “DRS HOG,” “R PIGGY” and “WE VBAD.”

At least, sort of bad.

“This is my bad-boy look,” said Terry Hardy, 35, of Anaheim, who drives a soft-drink delivery truck by day and his Harley by night. It’s no cheap change in personality--Hardy’s $30,000 machine includes a customized $1,600 paint job in pink, fuchsia and turquoise.

Harley owners--middle-aged women, especially--enjoy the shock value that comes with telling co-workers that they’re off to a bikers convention.

Doris Wohld, 58, works for the post office in Sonora, Calif., and said that when she told her boss she needed some time off to go to Laughlin for a convention, “he assumed I was going to the post office convention, which is next week.

“When I told him I was going to the Harley run, you should have seen his mouth drop. Well, he plays golf and I don’t.”

Not everyone at the convention was a Harley veteran. Twenty-two-year-old Michele Lomax of Seattle came to be in a wedding and hitched a ride with a biker friend.

“The first thing I realized is that Harley riders don’t all have beards and big guts,” she said. “They come from all backgrounds, ages and professions. And everyone I’ve met is so warm and friendly.”