What is the Zombie Bike Parade?

Now in its 8th year, the Zombie Bike Parade is one of Northern California’s biggest free Halloween gatherings — a costumed bike ride and all-day festival that turns the college town of Davis into what organizers cheerfully call a “Halloween wonderland.” It is produced by the Davis Odd Fellows Lodge #169 and The Bike Campaign along with the Davis Bike Club, with support from the City of Davis and a long list of local sponsors, and it draws a peak crowd of around 3,500 people. Expect mad scientists, dancing dead, a Halloween marching band, zombies on stilts and a skydiving finale — all built around bikes, because Davis is famously the bicycling capital of the United States.

What sets this event apart from a typical haunt is that it is genuinely free and built for families. There is no admission fee and no registration to attend, and the whole thing is volunteer-run in service of a cause: getting more kids on bikes, including kids with disabilities.

When and where is the 2026 festival?

Everything on the main day happens Saturday, October 31, 2026, centered on Community Park at 1405 F Street in Davis, with a separate trick-or-treat trail running through downtown afterward. Here is the shape of the day as the organizers have published it — treat the clock times as a guide and confirm them before you go, since a volunteer event’s schedule can shift:

What happens at the festival?

The heart of the day is Community Park, where more than 25 free entertainment stations run side by side. Organizers list a Halloween train, live bats, arts and crafts, festival games, two bounce houses and slides, Halloween acrobats, singers and dancers, and even an official zombie festival video game. Interactive stations let kids meet local Davis groups like the Citrus Circuits robotics team and the Davis Fencing Academy, while pop-up “brain juice” (pink lemonade) and “brain bites” stands are run by neighborhood children along the way. Listed food and drink vendors include Cadence Coffee, Hotdogger, Steve’s Pizza, Kona Ice, Buckhorn Grill and more.

One nice touch for families is the Zombie Kingdom Quest: solve a Halloween riddle around the park and earn a free board game and candy. The whole festival closes out with the Skydance skydiving team dropping into the park in costume — the kind of grand finale most free community events do not attempt.

How does the bike parade work?

The parade itself rolls from Community Park out to Mace Ranch Park and back, a loop of under five miles along Davis’s protected bike paths and quiet neighborhoods, moving at an easy, normal cycling pace. Riders who complete the ride are rewarded at the Mace Ranch Park turnaround with a BMX stunt show. An important distinction to plan around: the moving parade is meant for bicycles, scooters and anything that can comfortably keep pace with a bike, while the festival back at Community Park welcomes absolutely everyone — pedestrians, skateboards, strollers, wheelchairs and powerchairs included — and that is where the majority of the day’s activities take place. So you do not need a bike, or the ability to ride one, to take part in most of the fun.

The rest of the Halloweekend

The parade is the centerpiece, but the organizers program a full Halloweekend around it. On Friday, October 30, the Davis Food Co-op hosts a free Halloween block party with live music, local food, a photo booth and vendors, and there is a separate adults-only (18+) Zombie Halloween Party — listed at Sudwerk Brewing (2001 2nd Street) — with a costume showcase, prizes, and fortune tellers, with proceeds supporting Thriving Pink’s PINKtober breast-cancer-awareness campaign. Earlier in the month you can add on Bobby Dazzler’s Pumpkin Patch (a maze, petting zoo, horse rides and a cow train) and the family-friendly Watermelon Music Haunted House on select October dates. Because venues and dates for these add-ons can change, check the festival’s official schedule for the latest.

Why the event matters: NorCal Trykers

The reason the Zombie Bike Parade can stay free is that it doubles as a fundraiser. Over the past seven years the event has raised more than $50,000 for NorCal Trykers, a nonprofit that builds custom adaptive tricycles for children with disabilities. Each trike costs roughly $1,200 to make, and the festival’s proceeds have helped put 42 kids on their own custom trike so far — many feeling the wind in their hair on a bike for the first time. That accessibility mission runs through the day itself, from the adaptive trikes on the route to the everyone-welcome festival grounds, and it is a big part of why the event has become a Davis institution rather than just another costume party.

Planning your visit to Davis

Davis sits just west of Sacramento and is one of the easiest small cities in the country to explore on two wheels, with 108 miles of bike lanes, 63 miles of off-street bike paths and the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame downtown. If you are coming from out of town, organizers suggest arriving by Friday to catch the full Halloweekend; the town has around a dozen hotels, plus the UC Davis Arboretum and a walkable downtown for the rest of your stay, and several bike shops rent wheels if you did not bring your own. If you are building a wider Northern California Halloween trip, it pairs naturally with a night at one of the best haunted houses in Sacramento, and you can scan the rest of the state on our California haunted houses guide or search haunted houses near you to round out the weekend.

Planning a Northern California Halloween weekend around the ride? Find more haunted houses near you to fill out the trip.