EDIT: I’ll repost this profile and playlist whenever there is a total eclipse coming up! In 2022, there is one on November 7th, the night before Election Day here in the United States. Most of the US and Eastern Europe will see all or part of this eclipse. Sorry, Western Europe, it’s not your turn! Here are the details of this 2022 eclipse.
Lunar eclipses are fascinating celestial events and make for entertaining theme rides in your cycling classes, like the solar eclipse we posted in 2017. The next lunar eclipse will be on May 16, 2022. It will be a spectacular total lunar eclipse where the Earth’s umbra, the darkest part of its shadow, completely covers the moon. Because a totally eclipsed moon is usually colored red, total lunar eclipses are also called Blood Moons.
There are usually two lunar eclipses per year, some partial, some total. Save this website to keep track of future eclipses to plan ahead for your next lunar theme ride. To make your lunar eclipse profile more interesting, throw out a few bits of trivia; here is some information about lunar eclipses to help you out.
Several years ago, I created a versatile hill repeats profile called “Tears from the Moon,” using songs about the moon and a few songs about the eclipse. There are four climbs that get progressively longer. You can find that profile and playlist below, along with the our popular Moon, Earth, Stars, Planets Spotify bucket playlist (with over 200 tracks) if you want to change out some of the songs.
You don’t need a lunar eclipse to use this profile—there are many great opportunities to celebrate the moon (or just planets in general). Bring this profile out whenever there is a blue moon, a harvest moon around the autumnal equinox, or even just one of our planet’s beautiful monthly full moons. If you use my attached profile to celebrate a full moon, you might want to take out the three songs about the eclipse and replace them with some of the lunar songs in this bucket playlist.
Throw in a little fun about an eclipse from the surface of Mars: On April 20, 2022, NASA released a video shot by the Mars Perseverance rover of a solar eclipse by the Mars moon Phobos. It’s actually pretty funny; this is how they described it: “Just a hunk of space rock passing in front of a massive burning ball of gas recorded by a robot from the surface of an extraterrestrial planet, no big deal.” For some lighthearted humor, if you have video capabilities, you can play the short video provided by NASA (and available on YouTube) in your class.