I did part of the pacific coast in addition to the transam this summer, and I can't say that I'd recommend it. It's misty, cold, sections of no shoulder, aggressive traffic. It was possibly the worst riding we did on the trip. The redwoods were worth it to me, but overall I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as the transam.

As for weather, be careful. My clothes were soaked within 2 or 3 days and we were forced to a laundromat every once in a while simply to have dry clothing. We never hit rain though, just the misty fog off the water.

Highway 1 is a nightmare for traffic just above San Francisco... We had a few guys tell us to head inland and if we weren't in a hurry we certainly would have. In hindsight it would have been worth it.

Still, any day on a bike is better than a day at the office. Clearly I'm not the majority opinion because we camped with about 5-30 bikers every night, all of whom seemed pleased as punch. The community of cyclists was definitely the coolest part of the coast. Hiker/Biker camp sights are $5 a pop, which is reasonable, but we couldn't find any stealth camping.

In any case, use the Oregon free maps as mentioned, they are exactly the same as the ACA ones.

If you want to see an ACA map, I still have map 3 intact (map 2 got cut up and dispersed to give directions to other folks). Just PM me your address and I'll mail it to you. I have a few extra stamps laying around : ) That'll get you from Oregon down to San Francisco. All the riders we met said San Francisco down was by far their favorite riding. (Big Sur being a majority favorite area)