We’ve spent Thanksgiving Day driving south from Maryland, with traffic crawling all the way from Washington to Richmond. It’s nearly four o’clock when we settle into our hotel, but I can’t stand the thought of just flopping back and watching the evening news. So, as we had brought our bikes along, I suggest taking a ride along the boardwalk.

It’s been years since I was last in Virginia Beach. I remember a snarl of traffic along Atlantic Avenue, the main thoroughfare, and a motley parade of humanity roiling along the two-and-a-half mile stretch of concrete called the boardwalk. (The boardwalk was replaced by concrete long ago, but the name persists.)

Now the bikini shops and soft-serve ice cream stands lining Atlantic Avenue are shuttered. Who wants Tastee Freeze when the temperature hovers near freezing? Nearly empty high-rise hotels march like pastel dominoes along the beachfront. Clumps of palm trees, swathed in thick layers of protective plastic, look faintly ridiculous. We park in an almost deserted lot near the far end of the boardwalk and take our bikes from the back of the car.

Not everyone enjoys biking in cold weather, but I do. Of course, it helps that I’m dressed in polarfleece, with a windproof jacket and sheepskin hat. We set out against the wind, looking forward to the pleasure of having it to our backs on our return.

It’s interesting to see who’s out and about on a chilly Thanksgiving evening. There aren’t many, but those few wear the giddy looks of holiday escape artists. A disproportionate number are walking dogs. The best way to avoid becoming a couch potato is to own a large, active dog. Or even a small one.

There’s a narrow bike path running alongside the boardwalk, but it’s not as smooth or inviting as the expanse of concrete boardwalk. In the summer, cyclists are confined to the brick path, but now we can wheel freely on the concrete, in great swoops like seabirds. Occasionally we pause to regard the sunset-stained sea. An amethyst sky, with a skein of cotton-candy clouds, deepens rapidly to purple.

As we reach our turning point at the end of the boardwalk, suddenly there’s a flicker, then a blaze of light. We’ve stumbled into the festival of lights held each evening from mid-November to January. The boardwalk is closed to pedestrians, then opened to motorists, who pay to slowly cruise a two-mile stretch decked out in Christmas gaudy. The Twelve Days of Christmas, in succession. Surfing Santa. Dancing crabs.

Men in reflective vests are shooing the few remaining strollers from the boardwalk, but we wheel by, unhindered. For us, it’s free, in every sense of the word. The wind to our backs, we take in the display all the way back to the car.