The beach at Ponte Vedra is a wide band of pale sand that drops gently into the Atlantic, backed by dunes with sea oats and low scrub, and the coast road behind it, State Road A1A, runs for miles in a sequence of palm trees, big houses and glimpses of the water. It is an affluent place now, with golf courses, tennis clubs and gated communities, and home to the headquarters of the PGA Tour and the TPC Sawgrass course, where the Players Championship is played each year and the par-three seventeenth hole sits on an island green that has humbled the best golfers in the world.
The name sounds Spanish but was made up in the early twentieth century, and the area was first developed not for golf but for mining. Prospectors found that the beach sands here held titanium-bearing minerals such as rutile and ilmenite, used in paint and later in the war effort, and for a time the community was called Mineral City. The mining stopped, and the town turned to tourism, which proved far more lasting.
On a motorcycle, A1A is a relaxed run rather than a technical one. The road follows the barrier island south toward St. Augustine, the oldest continuously inhabited European-founded city in the United States, established by the Spanish in 1565, with a stone fort and narrow streets worth a long stop. Northward, the route leads to the Mayport ferry and the beaches of Jacksonville. The surface is generally good, with long straight sections broken by gentle bends, bridges across tidal creeks and marsh, and low sunlight through the palms. Speed limits are enforced, and summer traffic can be heavy near beaches.
Weather deserves attention. Thunderstorms arrive suddenly on summer afternoons with lightning and heavy rain, and hurricane season runs from June to November. Winter days are mild, with morning chill sometimes dipping near freezing in January. For fuel and food, the community of about thirty-five thousand people has everything, with a long list of seafood restaurants, bakeries and cafes. October to May is the best time to ride, with clear air and warm sun.