OCT 25, 2010 – 12:00AM

I rode to work the other day — Saturday, to be exact — in a bit of a breeze.

My beloved Weather Channel said it was a 20-mph blow; in other words, nothing special by Kansas standards.

As I strolled by one of the many TVs in the office, I was surprised to see there was a tornado watch for part of northeast Kansas. I was surprised because it’s an odd time of year for tornadoes, and because I’m so enamored of the Weather Channel in all its forms — on TV, on the Interwebs, on my phone — such doom-and-gloom watches, warning and advisories rarely catch me by surprise.

Lovely Larry wasn’t in the watch area, but it made me think about all the different times I had cycled after the National Weather Service in Topeka had issued a weather statement of some sort that the sky was about to fall. Or freeze. Or blow.

I have ridden in: heat advisories, excessive heat watches and warnings, freeze watches and warnings, hard freeze watches and warnings, flood watches, flash flood watches and warnings and blowing snow advisories. I’ve pedaled in air-quality alerts, high wind watches and warnings, dense fog advisories and all the severe-thunderstorm advisories. I’ve biked through wind-chill watches and warnings, winter-weather advisories and tornado watches. I’ve ridden on the same day a tornado warning was issued, but never while the sirens actually were sounding.

(As an aside, I’ve always considered tornado watches to be a bit of CYA for the NWS. After all, a watch suggests folks should run outside to scan the skies for potential twisters when, in fact, that’s about the last thing any non-storm-chaser should do. I always thought the weathermen should issue tornado warnings, in place of watches, and Get Your Behind In the Basement Lest Ye Die advisories, but that’s just me.)

In other words, I’ve ridden in just about every weather statement possible in this neck of the woods, though I still regret not riding in the blizzard warning that was issued this past winter, just so I could add it to my list. I recall it was close to the holiday season and — surprise, surprise — I was trying to get some last-minute shopping done, and conditions were just awful. I considered running a quick errand on my bike just to say I’d ridden in a blizzard warning, then I remembered it was A FREAKIN’ BLIZZARD, YOU MORON and it was difficult just walking from the car across the parking lot.

Oh, well, there’s always this winter, though in my four-plus decades in this state, that’s the first blizzard warning I can recall being in.

I popped on over to the National Weather Service website and found quite a few more watches and warnings I’d like to add before I pedal off to the big bike path in the sky, not so much because I’m a collector but simply because I prefer not to let a little weather keep me out of the saddle — except when it’s just too darned dangerous.

Perhaps someday I’ll ride in an ashfall or avalanche watch, a blowing dust advisory or a civil danger warning. Or perhaps an earthquake warning, an extreme wind warning or a gale or maybe even hazardous seas watch. Or a hydrologic advisory (whatever that is), a red-flag warning (think fire) or small-craft advisory.

Then I stumbled upon the grand-daddy of NWS statements, which, to me, would represent the pinnacle of caution-to-the-wind pedaling prowess: a nuclear power plant warning.

Now that I think about it, I might drive through that one.