MAY 17, 2010 – 12:00AM

You’ll have to pardon me, but I just had a bad case of the heebie jeebies.

See, I was thinking about Friday’s national Bike to Work day, and how plans are finally coming together for the World Company’s meet-up that morning. Tentative plans are for coffee and doughnuts for bike commuters at 7:30 a.m. Friday, likely at South Park.

Then I thought about another theme ride coming up, Wednesday’s Ride of Silence. The Ride of Silence is an international event in which cyclists are encouraged to ride slowly and silently to honor people who have been hurt or killed while cycling on public roadways.

Some cities have actual group Rides of Silence. Cyclists in cities without organized events are encouraged to ride on their own.

But that wasn’t the source of my involuntary shudder.

My thoughts drifted to the other end of the serious spectrum and landed on another international ride I’m super-stoked about: the World Naked Bike Ride. The WNBR will be held June 12.

Now, I’m not going to provide a link to the WNBR’s website. I’m pretty sure it’s Not Safe for Work.

The WNBR is an international event, with dates for northern and southern hemispheres, and its mission is for cyclists to ride bare (or nearly bare or even fully clothed; the level of dress is up to the pedaler’s comfort level) to stand up for their rights to the road and protest dependence on oil and oppression by the four-wheeled masses and blahblahblahblahblahblahblah.

Bottom line: naughty bits on bikes.

Then it dawned on me that a combination of all three rides just might be my idea of heaven on earth. A bike ride to work, in silence, surrounded by naked cyclists.

Somebody pinch me.

Alas, it’s only a dream.

For one thing, the closest city confirmed to be participating in the WNBR is St. Louis. (Quick: Somebody Google the WNBR website and get Lawrence on the list!)

And I’m afraid not every cyclist I’ve seen clothed would be a cyclist I’d like to see unclothed.

Don’t get me wrong. There are some mighty fine looking cyclists, some of whom I wouldn’t mind looking at in the buff. Their buffness, I mean, not mine.

But there are some cyclists — myself included — who present better in as much clothing as possible.

I’m afraid my birthday-suit bicycling would turn the Ride of Silence into the Ride of Snickers, Outright Guffaws and a Couple of Suppressed Gags.

And then there’s the whole awkwardness of rolling to the office in a get-up markedly more casual than business casual.

Hence the heebie jeebies. The thought of jaybird-biking my way through the streets of Lawrence, then rolling up to the office in the buff and settling in for a day at work proved … unsettling.

So I guess I’ll have to shelve my, um, fantasies of a Naked Ride to Work of Silence and will have to settle for two of the three instead.

If only I could pick the two.