For the record, I was not on drugs that afternoon. Not sure about the butterfly. Your theory about air deflecting from the spokes sounds plausible to me.

Then again, there may have been other forces as work, I have a vague memory of my high school chemistry teacher, Mr. Plati, telling the class that because apparently solid objects consisted mostly of empty space between atomic particles, it was theoretically possible--if everything lined up just right--that a brick thrown at a glass window might just pass right through it without damage. He did say that that kind of thing didn't happen very often.