People for Bikes

People for bikes is a great site dedicated to getting more people on bikes. I highly suggest signing the pledge and getting involved with them. This picture I got off their site gives great reasons to ride a bike and great reasons to get your friends to join you.

Maintenance

Just like cars, bikes need regular maintenance to keep them on the road. Chains need lubing and degreasing, gears need degreasing, tires need to be inflated, etc. Every bike owner should have a tire pump, at least one spare tube, degreaser, and chain lube. DO NOT USE WD40! There are many types of chain lube and it really depends on your preference. Go to your local bike shop and ask which type they suggest.
If you're biking on a budget, as I am, learning how to fix your own bike is a great skill to have. It requires a bigger initial investment to buy your own tools and parts but it costs a lot less than paying a mechanic to fix it. You also learn how your bike works a lot better and can fine tune it to your preferences. Go to a book store and see if they have any manuals on bike maintenance and repair. I picked up The Bicycling (magazine) Guide to Complete Bicycle Maintenance and Repair for Road and Mountain Bikes and Bike Repair and Maintenance for Dummies. The Bicycling Guide is a lot more informative and in depth but the Bike Repair for Dummies has some great stuff, too. They tell you what tools you'll need for everything and what parts you need for repairs.

Laws

Bikes follow the same laws as cars and any other vehicle on the road. This works great to defend and protect bicyclists against cars but the flipside is that we must still obey all traffic laws. Because many drivers already dislike us, they will be looking for any reason to dislike us more so all we do by tailgating (when possible), running red lights, and generally driving unsafely is shoot ourselves and our cause in the foot by giving the other side reasons to shoot us down. If we follow the letter of the law and we get injured by a car, it will most likely be there fault so although you'll likely be very hurt, you won't then have legal trouble on top of that. In some jurisdictions, bikes have special laws so before you ride on the street (which you're legally supposed to do instead of  riding on the sidewalk) check your state and city's bike laws.

Merch

Depending on how many readers I get, I might start selling bumper stickers and T-shirts and the like to raise funds to help raise awareness of bikes and urban biking and such. I also have to find how the money would go to said causes or if I want to handle it myself. If you would like a bumper sticker or shirt or have other ideas on how to raise funds/awareness, comment/reply.

Pedaling Revolution

I recently acquired Pedaling Revolution by Jeff Mapes and it is a fantastic book. It's about the struggle of urban bicyclists and how cities are becoming more and more bike friendly. Mapes makes some great points and gives bike advocates a lot of arguments for making their cities more bike friendly. One of the best paragraphs is in the introduction where he says,

"The bike offers a non-polluting, non-congesting, physically active form of transportation in a country, and in a world, that increasingly seems to need such options. The heightened global competition for the world's oil supplies has ended the era of cheap fuel that made our automobile dependency possible. Our increasingly sedentary lifestyle raises the specter of an obesity epidemic that could shorten the life span of the next generation. And we're outstripping our ability to maintain and expand out network of roads and bridges."

He looks at both sides of the argument and admits sometimes bicycling doesn't work. I highly highly suggest getting a copy of this.