The California coast is great for cycling in the Fall/Winter. If you stay North of Malibu and South of Monterey it is easy to find roads with very little traffic. It still amazes me (easily done) that while I live 40 miles north of millions of people I can regularly ride to an overlook with a view of a huge metropolitan area but I have only been passed by 6 or 8 cars in the last hour. If I ride 10 min further there is a view of the Pacific, and you can't see a more than a few very exclusive homes.
There is a large cycling culture here, most cities have clubs with good information on good routes. In the winter it is common to see/meet people from other counties riding our area. Pros regularly visit our area. Year round we see fully loaded touring bikes passing through while we are on our club rides.
Most of our riding is includes some climbing but flat routes can be found. If you want to climb and love technical descents there is a lot of that.
Most importantly we have failed to lose one club member to an earthquake in over a month.
