I was driving back from Nine Eagles State Park earlier this fall. It was cloudy, and dark. No moon, no stars. Not even any roadside lights out there in the middle of the country. Despite my best efforts to stay awake by consuming massive quantities of sunflower seeds and black coffee, I was starting to nod off. As I rounded a bend on HW69, something darted out in front of me. It jolted me back to consciousness, but not quickly enough. I hit it. Hard. Through the shattered windshield, I saw whatever it was hurled 30 feet in front of me. Tires squealing, brakes smoking, I fish-tailed off into a ditch. My heart was pounding. I got out of the car, and cautiously limped forward through the swirling dust illuminated only by my headlights. I approached, slowly, and saw what I had done. I knew that no one could ever know about this. I dragged it back to the car. I had to remove some pieces to get it to fit in the back seat, but I knew that at this point, it didn’t matter. In my garage at home, I stripped it down. I gingerly wiped the dirt off of, only to reveal the true extent of the damage. I knew there was only one thing left to do. I welded the freehub and loctited the cassette on. My beater was born.

Bonus Question: Somewhere on this bike, a castle nut (http://www.brattons.com/uploads/images_products_large/36900.jpg) is employed for a specific reason. Using your powers of reason, can you guess what purpose it serves?