An organization has stepped forward to pick up the Mission With Bikes project.

Before his death in October, Mark Blum of Agoura Hills was the leader of Mission With Bikes, which matched bicycles with the needy and sent more than 3,000 bikes around the world.

At age 54, Blum died Oct. 12 in an Oak Park care facility of complications from multiple sclerosis.

Jim Gilmer, with the Cyrus Urban Inter-church Sustainability Network in Oxnard, said that group is taking bikes in working condition and accepting donations to continue the program founded in 1996 by Blum.

Gilmer said Mission Part II is getting under way with the help of volunteers from Eternal Life Christian Center, Victory Life and Centro Evangelico Emmanuel churches in Oxnard.

Until mid-2007, the rafters of Blum's garage at his home on Lake Lindero Drive had been filled with bicycle tires and the floor studded with cabinets and stacks of parts.

After Blum died, more than 200 bikes in his backyard were collected by members of Calvary Community Church in Westlake Village and given to Gilmer and his helpers for distribution.

The operation now will need to grow into repairing bikes, Gilmer said.

Currently, the Cyrus organization maintains a storage unit in Oxnard, and "we are trying to raise support to rent a first-floor larger unit to allow for work-repair space," Gilmer said.

The churches are part of ACTION, or Area Christians Taking Initiative on Needs, which was launched in 2004.

Its Web site, www.actionvc.org, lists its board of directors, including spiritual, business and social service leaders in Ventura County.

For 11 years, Blum's Mission With Bikes put two-wheelers into the hands of people of all ages, some using bicycles for having fun, and others needing them for getting to work.

The ministry was endorsed by bike shops and supported by the Kiwanis Club of Thousand Oaks and the Las Virgenes and Conejo Optimists.

Most of the bikes were reconditioned, but some new or nearly new ones needed only polishing and passing a safety checklist.

Blum's disease forced the successful insurance company executive to retire, so he picked bicycle repair as a charity to give his life meaning, he once said. At first, Blum paid for bicycles and parts himself but then used volunteers more and more as the crippling effects of multiple sclerosis advanced.

"Once word got around about my ministry, I'd come home and find several bicycles just sitting on the porch," Blum said in early 2007.

"It was just like they were flowers and bloomed instantly."

Gilmer said those who want to help with the bike project can leave messages at 981-7110.