By Diane A. Rhodes | Special to Valley News Published on 7/29/2022
The late Kai Raecke is shown in a still photo taken from a memorial video created by his coworkers, Dave Nichols, Steve “Beatnik” Werner, Bryan Glickfeld, Kit Maira and Jasper Harris. Valley News/Courtesy photo
When Valerie Rocio Raecke of Menifee decided to honor her late husband, Kai
Raecke, by having his favorite motorcycle restored to its former glory, she
couldn’t think of anyone better to do the job than his longtime friend, Ian
Roussel. The star of MAVTV’s “Full Custom Garage,” Roussel has been building
cars in his free time since 1984. He opened his vehicle customization shop in Los
Angeles in 1998.
Rocio Raecke said her husband talked often about restoring his first love but
other obligations always took over as it sat in the garage for years. Raecke’s work
as an editor, most notably for “Easyriders” magazine, involved traveling to events
and reviewing bikes that sponsors such as Harley Davidson, Victory and Indian
Chief would lend the magazine. Although he had little free time to work on his
own bike, he collected a trunk full of motorcycle parts that he planned to use on
it. Rocio Raecke kept that trunk in the hope of one day restoring the bike for
Raecke who was diagnosed in July 2019 with glioblastoma, a terminal brain
cancer, and succumbed to the disease April 22, 2020.
“As a tribute to him, I wanted to bring it back to its original mint condition,” Rocio
Raecke said. “Ian and Kai had a very special relationship. Knowing that Ian had
worked on Kai’s 1957 Harley Davidson Sportster, I knew he was the man for the
job. He is a leader in the industry in customizing cars because of his incredibly
unique work.”
She said she was honored and overwhelmed with joy when Roussel agreed to
restore the Shovelhead. Since his television show began filming in 2013, when it
was picked up by MAVTV Motorsports Network, Roussel has built some wild and
creative custom vehicles. For the past three years he has worked and filmed from
his Mojave Desert home.
Roussel welcomed the opportunity to work on Raecke’s 1980 Harley Davidson
FLH, custom built by legendary builders Mondo and Van of Denver’s Choppers
fame, for an episode of his television program. Spending five days filming the
major disassembly, assessment, cleaning, repairs and replacement as necessary,
the episode featuring Raecke’s “Purple Haze” bike is set to air in September.
“Valerie offered me free rein, but we both agree it should look like he just rode it
home that day, not some untouchable museum piece,” Roussel said. “No
cosmetic changes; just used, maintained and rideable.”
Raecke and Roussel were friends for nearly 20 years while living near one another
in the San Fernando Valley. Motorcycles are not often featured on Full Custom
Garage. Roussel said the only reason they were approached at all was because of
the contributions from his friend Raecke.
“Kai worked as editor of many magazine titles, and one day a new title was added
to his roster, ‘RebelRodz’ magazine. He knew nothing about hotrods or custom
cars. We lived a few miles apart and I wanted publishing. It was a perfect match,”
Roussel said.
Rocio Raecke said her husband’s love for motorcycles stemmed from his
childhood as a child growing up at the foot of the Alps, in rural Bavaria.
“At 13 years of age, he and a childhood friend pooled their money and invested it
in a decrepit DKW KT 125W motorcycle that was in need of a lot of TLC,” she said.
DKW was a German car and motorcycle manufacturer. Das-Kleine-Wunder in
English translates to “the little wonder” or Des-Knabel-Wunsch, which in English
means “the boy’s wish” from when the company manufactured toy two-stroke
engines. DKW was one of the companies that formed what is now known as Audi.
“Kai and his friends rode that bike on the lonesome dirt trails along farmers’ fields
and through the Bavarian Forest. The old bike smoked, it didn’t go very fast, but
he and his friends didn’t care. They were just stoked to have wheels. In the early
1970s, the movie ‘Easy Rider’ was translated into German, and it was being shown
in the only movie theater in his small hometown. Kai and his friends were glued to
the movie screen from the opening scene until the credits. Like it was for most
Americans, it was spellbinding and eye opening. And maybe even more so for him
as a kid in Europe, because it featured riding a Harley Davidson customized
chopper through such exotic vistas and incredibly stupendous backdrops of what
he could only dream of. The movie ‘Easy Rider’ did more for choppers around the
world than any other movie. Kai could only hope to one day have a chopper of his
own.”
She said the childhood dreams Raecke had while watching the movie were
fulfilled when he came to America, got his own chopper and was working at a
magazine called “Easyriders” that covered the biker scene.
“His life had come full circle,” Rocio Raecke said. “That 14-year-old boy came alive
inside of him each time he rode his chopper. The bike represented freedom and
adventure.”
After Raecke’s death in 2020, Rocio Raecke moved to Menifee to be closer to her
brother who had recently lost his wife. Together the siblings formed a charitable
nonprofit which assists schoolchildren in The Philippines and Colombia, places
where the family has ties.
Another project that was close to Raecke’s heart was writing a book about the
many years he spent working as editor of publications that catered to bike lovers
everywhere. As difficult as it was for him to do while he was fighting cancer, he
did complete it and it is set to be published by Book Baby in September.
“This book was truly a labor of love for my husband, because every heartfelt word
was painstakingly typed one letter at a time into the notes function of his iPhone
using his left hand because his right hand was partially paralyzed due to the
tumor,” Rocio Raecke said. “In addition, due to the tumor, he lost the use of his
speech, therefore, he couldn’t just dictate his copy into a voice-to-text program.
During the gathering of the pictures for the book, I helped my husband find
pictures from his thousands of slides and photographs. He wrote this book at the
height of the pandemic when the world had shut down. As soon as the book was
finished, it was as if he felt that he could now die in peace. He finished the book
on a Monday, and by Wednesday, he was on hospice which lasted seven days and
then he passed away.”
In his book, Raecke wrote how he came to acquire the 1980 motorcycle, lovingly
named “Purple Haze.” He was made an offer he couldn’t refuse about a Harley
Davidson bike by Joe Teresi, owner of Paisano Publications, which published
Easyriders magazine.
“He had been teased from his first days working at Paisano Publications back in
January of 1988 when he parked his Honda Shadow motorcycle in a spot in the
parking lot that read ‘Harley Only,’” Rocio Raecke said. “Even though he worked
there, he was chided for riding a Honda motorcycle while he worked for a
magazine that only wrote about the great American motorcycles manufactured
by Harley Davidson. He couldn’t embody the lifestyle of the Harley biker scene on
a Honda Shadow.”
Raecke included photographs of the Shovelhead in his book and described the
bike’s metamorphosis from a caterpillar to a butterfly. She said the bike was also
special to him because it was his first Harley and he had begun to customize it to
suit him. One day, however, the bike underwent a huge transformation when
biker legend and godfather of the choppers Armando ‘Mondo’ Porras of Denver’s
Choppers offered to “fix a couple of minor things.”
Rocio Raecke said Raecke was honored to have Mondo of Denver’s Choppers
offer to work on his bike as he is considered a legendary icon who has been
building choppers since 1967.
“Kai wrote in his book that he had to travel to Europe for a couple of weeks,
therefore he wasn’t going to be using the bike,” Rocio Raecke said. “When he
returned, Mondo informed him that the bike was being shot for Easyriders
magazine. He was curious as to what changes would merit his old Shovelhead
being photographed for the magazine he worked for. When he arrived at the
photography studio, he went looking for his old bike not realizing that Mondo had
changed the bike’s look completely. The old pumpkin truly had been turned into a
gorgeous sled; he was blown away by the changes Mondo had made.”
Rocio Raecke said the loss of her husband was felt throughout the motorcycle
world. “He was so down to earth, and he loved what he did,” she said. “He also enjoyed giving back to those less fortunate. We would work together to serve meals to the homeless during the holidays, and we would travel overseas to help orphans with special needs who were wards of the state and lived in an orphanage in the
outskirts of Pereira, Colombia. His last trip to the orphanage was in 2019, before
he was diagnosed with Glioblastoma. He is also noted for having penned the
‘Weasels Bylaws’ which has been translated into several languages around the
world. The publication is a tongue-in-cheek set of rules for biker groups.”
A percentage of sales from “Easywriter, The Flawed Memories of an Easyriders
Editor” will be allocated to the Foundation’s projects and programs. Updates and
purchase information can be found here.
For more information on “Full Custom Garage,” click here.
A memorial video created by Raecke’s coworkers Dave Nichols, Steve “Beatnik”
Werner, Bryan Glickfeld, Kit Maira and Jasper Harris titled “Easy Ridin’ with Kai
Raecke” can be viewed here.
Comments