eU-xPaT, when I was 52, I retired here, in Watsonville, CA, between Santa Cruz and Monterey on the Monterey Bay. In the eight years I have lived here I have gotten into the two sports best known around here: surfing and cycling. From my house, I can easily cycle on the Pacific Coast Bike Trail out by the beaches or gain easy access into the redwood forests of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Many of the mountain roads have very little traffic. Northern Monterey County is linked by a dedicated, two-lane bike and recreation trail from Castroville to Monterey and Pacific Grove. The trail hooks up with the scenic 17-mile drive around the peninsula to Carmel.
In the summer, the hot inland pulls the fog in to give us natural air conditioning. It rarely goes above 75 or 80 deg F within a few miles of the coast. In the winter, we have a few frosty nights, with temps usually not going below about 28 deg. About 7 years ago we had a killer freeze that went down to 20 deg each night for a week. But that is very rare. It's never too cold to cycle around here. We get about 30 inches of rain, which comes between November and May. There is usually no rain in the summer and early fall. In the mountain areas, it is much hotter in the summer and rainier in the winter.
This whole area is a cyclist's paradise. There are a lot of retirees here. The whole Monterey Bay area is a major center of orgainc farming, so we have a lot of good food around here.
BTW, I got into cycling originally when I was living in Michigan and Germany in the 1970s--we have a few things in common.