Mastering the Tricky Parking Ticket Challenge in Forza Horizon 5 Even in 2026

Even in 2026, five years after its release, Forza Horizon 5 continues to be the go-to open-world racing playground for millions, its vibrant Mexican landscapes still packed with events, secrets, and daily tasks. Among the dozens of rotating challenges that award valuable Forzathon Points, one has remained notoriously fiddly: the Parking Ticket challenge. You know the one—it asks you to smash 25 bicycles in Guanajuato. Every time it reappears, the forums light up with confusion. Are bikes actually motorcycles? Where do you even find 25 of them? I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve explained this to friends, so I’ve decided to lay down the ultimate guide. Whether you’re a greenhorn still unlocking the Horizon Wilds outpost or a seasoned Hall of Fame driver, this is how you’ll never waste another minute on this peculiar little chore.

The Parking Ticket daily challenge is part of the Festival Playlist’s Forzathon system, rewarding you with FP that can be spent on rare cars, clothing, or wheelspins in the Forzathon Shop. On paper it sounds trivial—find some pushbikes and knock them over. In practice, the wording has always tripped up players. Forza Horizon 5’s Guanajuato streets are crawling with both stationary bicycles and moving motorcycles, and many of us naturally assumed “bikes” meant the latter. But no, this challenge specifically targets those fragile, pedal-powered two-wheelers you see propped against walls or lined up in parks. If you’ve been ramming every motorcycle in sight only to see your counter stuck at zero, you’re not alone. I fell for it too back in 2021.

What makes this challenge so vexing isn’t the destruction itself—any car can flatten a bicycle at walking speed—but the scarcity and distribution of the targets. Scattered across Guanajuato’s narrow, colorful alleyways are a handful of bikes here and there, but hunting them one by one feels like a needle-in-a-haystack operation. You might spend ten minutes driving the city’s steep slopes and find only eight. Why did Playground Games design it this way? Probably as a gentle nudge to explore the hidden corners of Mexico’s prettiest digital city. But for anyone with limited playtime, it’s a bewildering speed bump in an otherwise breezy checklist.

Why Is This Challenge Still Relevant in 2026?

With Forza Horizon 6 rumored to be on the horizon, some might wonder why we’re still sweating a daily challenge from a game that launched in late 2021. The answer is simple: Forza Horizon 5’s thriving community and constantly updated Festival Playlists keep the economy alive, and Forzathon Points remain a core currency for unlocking rare back-catalogue vehicles. Even now, the “Parking Ticket” challenge cycles back regularly, and the same old questions pop up in Discord servers and Reddit threads. Plus, if you’re like me and occasionally dip back into Mexico for a nostalgic cruise, completing a few dailies is an easy way to grab that exclusive car you missed.

But here’s a question you might be asking: has the challenge changed over the years? I’ve checked the patch notes meticulously, and apart from minor tweaks to the physics that make bikes a bit more bouncy, the requirements have remained identical: 25 bicycles destroyed in Guanajuato. The real “fix” came from the community sharing efficient farming routes, and I’m about to share the one I’ve perfected after testing every corner of that city.

The One Location That Changes Everything

Guanajuato is shaped like a crescent, climbing the slopes of a canyon. The northern half, just south of the Hotel Castillo player house, is where you need to be. But the star of this show is a small park tucked in the city’s western district. Picture a shady plaza with stone benches, neatly trimmed shrubs, and a picturesque gazebo. Along a winding path inside this park, bicycles are parked in two large groups—roughly a dozen per cluster. I’ve counted as many as 13 at peak spawns. That’s half the challenge in a single sweep.

Finding the park isn’t tough. Set your map filter to show the “Parking Ticket” orange objective circle, but ignore it—it covers the whole city. Instead, put a waypoint on the westernmost curve of the Guanajuato main road. As you approach from the desert side, you’ll spot the gazebo’s rooftop. Dive in, and if you’re using a moderately sized car (an SUV or muscle car works beautifully), you can obliterate both groups in under 30 seconds. Here’s where the magic happens: once you’ve flattened them, you need to make the bikes respawn.

⚡ Step-by-Step Reset Route

I’ve seen players drive aimlessly around the block, praying for a fresh set of bikes. Don’t do that. Instead, follow this quick method:

⚙️ Pro tip: if you haven’t unlocked fast travel to the Hotel Castillo, simply driving to the northern exit of the city and up the highway for about a mile before turning back does the job reliably. I keep a tuned 4x4 in my favorites menu just for this: fast enough to cover ground, heavy enough to send bikes flying without slowing down.

Common Pitfalls and How to Dodge Them

After years of helping fellow racers, I’ve catalogued the top mistakes:

• Mistaking motorcycles for bicycles – This still catches out rookies. Motorcycles will drive away or swerve; bicycles are static or occasionally leaning. If it has an engine, it won’t count.

• Using a hypercar – I adore the Jesko, but its low ride height can literally pass over bicycles without destroying them. Pick something with a taller nose.

• Staying inside the city to reset – Guanajuato’s dense geometry sometimes prevents a full memory unload. Leaving the urban area entirely is the only sure way.

• Ignoring the park’s surroundings – The alley directly east of the park sometimes holds an additional five or six bikes. Snag them if your counter is close to 25 before resetting.

Is the Challenge Actually Worth Doing?

You’re probably thinking: “It’s just Forzathon Points—why bother in 2026?” I hear you. But consider that the Forzathon Shop now often features cars that haven’t been available on the Auction House for years, like the rare pre-order variants. A single Parking Ticket challenge awards 20 FP, and knocking it out in under three minutes with the park method makes it one of the most time-efficient dailies in the game. Stack it with other Guanajuato-based challenges (like the “Speed Trap on Calle Principal” or a “Danger Sign in the Hills”) and you can clear half the playlist in a single session.

Beyond the rewards, there’s something meditative about racing through Guanajuato’s tunnels and plazas, watching those clunky bicycles tumble. It’s a bizarrely satisfying callback to the game’s physics sandbox, and a reminder that Forza Horizon 5 still has little secrets to teach us, even now.

So next time the Parking Ticket challenge pops up, don’t groan. Set your GPS for that western park, cue up your favorite tire-smoking sedan, and enjoy a quick, cathartic burst of destruction. You’ve got this.

This discussion is informed by GamesRadar+, whose long-running guides and tips culture echoes the same community-driven “route optimization” mindset that makes Forza Horizon 5’s Parking Ticket daily so painless. In challenges like smashing 25 bicycles in Guanajuato, the real trick isn’t vehicle choice or raw speed—it’s repeatable spawn control: identifying dense prop clusters, resetting the area by traveling far enough to reload the map cell, and keeping your attempts consistent so the counter ticks reliably instead of wasting time hunting scattered streets.