Tip 108: Learn something

Ignorance is bliss. The flipside is that learning can be quite painful, like using your finger as a front derailleur.
You can learn something new from bike shop guy, like how there's this new kind of bottom bracket that makes everything prior seem to have the weight of lead and strength of paper mâché.
You can learn something new from Sheldon Brown, like how proper chain maintenance is as simple and accessible as ascending K2. ;)
You can learn something from someone you meet on your ride, like the many benefits of gloves.
Lastly, you can learn from a process of trial and error, but the terminology is quite misleading.  It should be trials and errors. No-one learns properly the first time.

BONUS TIP: Lessons learned this last way will send you on the long ride to being a better cyclist, but not until you've stopped in for a hot steaming cup of my-bike-my-gear-and-my-technique-all-suck at Cafe Doubt & Despondency.