What, you may ask, is a foam roller? It is a beautiful little piece of gear that probably costs 100 times as much to buy it as it did to make, but is still worth every dime I paid. See below.
The foam roller is the masseuse that you wish you could be for yourself. No money for a soigneur despite the hundreds of miles you spend on the bike. Use this little puppy to give yourself a good rub down and you'll be happy and maybe a little stretchier later.
The idea of the foam roller is to balance a part of your body (i.e. calf, thigh, lower back, gluts etc) on top of the roll and then slowly move back and forth. While you do this, the pressure stretches out your muscles and grinds through your tired limbs not unlike a deep tissue massage. The best part is that it's a pretty passive stretch so other than the pain of mashing your muscles it's fairly difficult to hurt yourself with this.
It works great. Especially after a hard weekend of riding and strength training, like I've been doing here in the early preseason, this thing can roll out my legs like nothing else. It's especially helpful on big muscles like your quads where it can be hard to manage a good rub down with your own hands.
Albeit, when you are really sore this feels more like torture than treatment, but I think we can all agree sometimes it takes a little good hurt to get rid of the bad hurt. (I'm sure that my neighbors probably think I'm being beaten by my wife because of my pathetic howling and wimpering when I use the foam roller after a really hard span of workouts.)
Where can you pick one up? Try REI or almost any other sports store. They usually cost about $25 (a lot cheaper than a professional massage and nearly as effective). Target and Wal-Mart frequently carry them too.
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