AGOURA HILLS' BIKE MAN ON MISSION.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

No telling how many needy kids are riding around on bicycles today because of the ``bike man.''

At least 100 kids from his organization alone, figures J.R. Jones, executive director of Lutheran Social Services in Thousand Oaks.

Then there are all the kids involved with United Way charities, the Conejo Valley Unified School District, children's homes, and all the other charitable and nonprofit organizations the bike man has adopted - about 125 in all.

Yeah, no one knows how many kids for sure, but we do know this. Not counting the 13 old bikes someone dropped off on his driveway recently, Mark Blum has given away 1,326 refurbished bicycles since 1994, when the onset of multiple sclerosis cost him his career as a successful insurance executive.

``He is truly an amazing guy everyone in the community knows as the bike man,'' says Nick Newkirk, community services coordinator for the city of Agoura Hills, where Blum lives.

The bike man turned tragedy into triumph by refurbishing hundreds of old bikes he picked up at garage sales - until a few years back when his MS got so bad he couldn't do it anymore.

So community volunteers stopped by his garage to do it for him.

Nothing prepares you for the day your world comes crashing down around you, Blum says.

He was 40 years old in 1993, with a high-profile job as a vice president in an insurance company. ``I was very active and traveled a lot,'' he said.

The next year, he was 41 and his career was over - ended by MS, a degenerative nerve disease.

``When I became disabled I needed something to do, so I bought a couple of rusted, old three-wheelers (tricycles) at a garage sale, and fixed them up in my garage,'' he said.

``When I was done, I thought, If I could do this for myself, why can't I do it for others?''

Before long, he had 75, then 100 used bikes in his garage - he was getting new tubes, tires, chains, handlebars, or whatever the bikes needed to be street-worthy again - paying for the repairs out of his own pocket.

``I started calling around to charities and nonprofits, asking if they needed bikes for their kids,'' Blum said.

Pretty soon, word-of-mouth took over, and people were dropping off their old bikes for him to fix and give away to kids who needed them.

Neighborhood kids were stopping by the bike man's garage after school to help him. And when Blum's eyesight and motor skills started to fail, volunteers who had heard about what the bike man was doing in his garage began showing up to help.

``Wherever I go, people I don't know are always asking, You're the bike man's daughter, aren't you? How's your dad doing?'' said Robyn Blum, Mark's 18-year-old daughter. The divorced father also has a son, 13-year-old David.

``We're proud of him and the way he's touched so many people's lives,'' his daughter said.

Jones, who works with the homeless and working-poor in shelter programs involving 30 local churches, agrees.

``Mark has impacted the lives of hundreds of people,'' he said. ``We have so many needy kids riding Mark's bikes to school, and their parents riding them to work,'' he said.

Mark Blum cherishes the thank-you letters he's received from kids, including the ones on the Navajo and Hopi Indian reservations who now ride 60 of his bikes.

And he laughs about having to call his friends in the Sheriff's Department earlier this year to tell them not to be alarmed if they saw ``a bunch of gangbangers'' on his front porch.

The bike man's visitors were from the Gang Reduction Project of East L.A., and they wanted to stop by to thank him for his donation to the group's ``Leave a gang, get a bike'' program.

But it's the little kids who really get to him, Blum says. Like the little girl last Sunday who walked up to him as he sat in his wheelchair outside the Thousand Oaks Library, where he attends his MS support group meeting.

``You don't know me, but you gave me a bike,'' she said and thanked him.

When you're legally blind and your motor skills are all but gone, you need something to keep you going, he says. And this is it.

If you're interesting in helping the bike man - maybe volunteering a little time in his garage - you can call Blum at [phone].

He's hoping to take his Mission With Bikes program to nonprofit status - so he can give donors tax-deductible receipts and collect some charitable donations to help defray the thousands of dollars he's spent the past six years on refurbishing more than 1,300 bikes.

If there are any bike-riding attorneys out there who want to help him pro bono with the paperwork, give him a call.

Either way, he's not quitting, the bike man says.

``I was real good in my insurance career, and you know what? I'm real good at this bicycle thing, too.''

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Photo:

``Bike man'' Mark Blum has donated 1,326 renovated bikes to needy kids and charitable groups. Blum was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1993 and began fixing bikes in 1996.

Charlotte Schmid-Maybach/Staff Photographer