Mike the Bike has just posted this in the South America Section:

A reminder following a post a couple of years ago. I'm currently in Rio and spent last week just north of Salvador, on the Lina Verde coast road, which is a near truck free and wonderful coast road from Sergipe to Bahia states. Bikers use a little antenna-like wire cutter, with a hook on the end, to catch the kite strings. Roadside kite flyers are still diving kites at bikes, attempting to catch you under the chin. The kite strings are either woven nylon or coated with powdered glass. They caught one poor chap last week, fatally I'm sorry to report, hence this post. Please, if you are riding in Brazil and see the local bikers using handlebar mounted radio antenna's, check out the hook at the top. Then watch out for kites [pipa's] until you buy and fix on a wire cutter for yourself. Most bike shops sell them.

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I lived in Brazil back in the late 90´s and it was a real problem then. A friend of mine was caught by one and although it did not harm to him it left a nasty gouge on his fairing. He put a hook on after that.
If you are riding there keep an eye out for kites.

You mean there are a not insignificant number of people trying to kill bikers? If so, why not just avoid the road instead of running the risk of serious injury or death?

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Hello everybody, speaking from Brazil here.
I always say that in Brazil the Line Cutter (Antena Corta-Pipa in Portuguese) is essential for riders. Kites with cerol lines (powdered glass glued to the line) are very common here, even then using cerol is considered a crime in most states.

There are 3 different kinds of line cutters in Brazil. The least expensive alternative are line cutters like this

They cost around $10-$15 reais each (and you should have 2 line cutters to be 100% safe) and you can find them for sale quite easily but they are ugly and not very durable (less then 6 months usually).

An other option is the one I use on my motorbike.

This one is retractable and costs around $20-$25 reais each. This is a Dual Stage and you can put it down when you need. Not pretty, but works fine.

There's a third option, this one


This one is a lot smaller that the other 2 options, but costs around $65-$70 reais each. If you have plans to ride for a long time in Brazil is the better option, but if you pretend to stay for a short period of time stay if the 2 other options.

The results of encountering a Cerol Line are very ugly, a lot of riders dies in Brazil because of this, and if they don´t die, the result could be something like this (just the link because the image is somehow disturbing).
http://i.imgur.com/NUAjh.jpg

Many thanks! What an excellent post. Very helpful stuff!!! And I hear this is happening in quite a few places in Brazil so it's an excellent warning. Cheers.

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Please excuse my ignorance but why are people in Brazil flying kites to harm motorcycle riders ? Do they not like motorcyclists or is it just cruel fun to them ? I had not ever heard of this before I saw this post

Thanks

Steve

Unfortunately some people have a somehow sadistic way to have "fun", knocking down motorcycle riders is one of these sadistic ways to have fun.

Hi Steve, grim isn't it. I gather from Mike that the main reason is robbery. Get a guy off his bike and he's easy meat - especially if he's injured. Dunno about cruel fun, but certainly cruel eh.

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Thanks Sam, I'm glad to be able to help some fellow riders.