Specialized’s proprietary, 700-watt motor feels natural—sometimes to an annoying extent, as the bike is designed for you to pedal and you won’t get faster than 10 mph just by using the throttle. Also, there’s no option for a dual battery. Still, the battery well exceeded Specialized’s estimated 60-mile range. Granted, I am a small person, but I was usually hauling at least one other person on the bike with me at all times, so I still found this remarkable.

It’s easily adjustable—both my 5’10” husband and my 5’2″ self were able to switch off riding, which is important if this is your family’s all-purpose hauler. The display is intuitive, and the buttons are well-spaced apart so you don’t get confused or end up button-mashing. Also, Specialized’s accessories go a long way toward making this bike so much more useful. Yes, you could jerry-rig some Home Depot buckets to the front of your bike and drill holes in the bottoms for them to drain, but the Coolcave panniers ($90) are so much more attractive, easy to use, and helpful for carting everything from kid dioramas to a dozen tiny soccer balls.

Best Value

The vast majority of people I know who buy a cargo ebike with their own money choose the Lectric XPedition2. There is just no better value for a dual-battery long-tail cargo ebike. Out of the box, Lectric has also gone above and beyond to make its bikes and accessories easy to assemble and use. You even pop the pedals in, instead of using regular screw-on pedals.

This bike’s specs are also wild for the price. It has a 1,310-watt rear hub motor, twice as powerful as the already-powerful Globe Haul. (It has a throttle and is a Class 2 ebike out of the box, though you can use the display to unlock its Class 3 capabilities and assist up to 28 mph.) It has hydraulic disc brakes, front suspension, an incredibly large and bright LCD color display, integrated lights, and fenders.

The farthest journey in human history concluded Friday evening when NASA’s Artemis II astronauts returned to Earth after a flight around the moon. The crew’s Orion space capsule named Integrity splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego shortly after 5 pm Pacific Time, marking the end of a 10-day, more than 695,000-mile voyage beyond the lunar far side and back.

The four-person crew of Artemis II—commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and mission-specialist Jeremy Hansen—traveled a greater distance from Earth than ever before, reaching 252,756 miles from our home planet.

“We most importantly choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lived,” said Canadian astronaut Hansen as the crew passed the previous record of 248,655 miles set during Apollo 13.

Integrity began its fiery descent when the spacecraft hit Earth’s atmosphere at about 24,000 miles per hour, entering a communication blackout and decelerating from friction as its heat shield reached temperatures of roughly 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The plan was for the capsule to deploy two drogue parachutes at an altitude of about 22,000 feet, slowing it to about 200 miles per hour, then deploy pilot chutes pulling the three main parachutes at roughly 6,000 feet. This would further slow the spacecraft to around 20 miles per hour before it splashed into the ocean.

During their mission, the Artemis II crew saw things that no human has seen before. Flying higher above the lunar surface than the Apollo missions, the astronauts were the first people to see the entire disk of the moon’s far side. They also witnessed a solar eclipse from the vicinity of the moon as the sun slipped behind the lunar disk and illuminated it from behind.

“Humans probably have not evolved to see what we are seeing,” said NASA astronaut Glover during the eclipse. He and the rest of the crew described a halo of light surrounding the moon while one side of the lunar surface was bathed in earthshine. Venus, Mars, and Saturn shone among the stars. “It is truly hard to describe. It is amazing.”

Artemis II began on April 1 when the crew launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop the 322-foot-tall Space Launch System rocket, the most powerful vehicle to ever carry humans. After conducting multiple altitude-raising engine burns and testing the manual controls of the spacecraft, the crew proceeded with the engine firing known as translunar injection on day two of the mission, which sent them on a trajectory to the moon.

For the next three days, the crew tested the Orion spacecraft’s systems, practiced putting on their spaceflight suits, conducted additional course correction burns, manually flew the Orion capsule again, and prepared for the lunar flyby around the far side of the moon. They also had trouble venting wastewater from the Orion capsule’s toilet into space.

“We definitely have to fix some of the plumbing,” NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said during a conversation with the crew.

At 12:41 am Eastern Time on April 6, Artemis II entered the lunar sphere of influence, where the moon’s gravity overcomes that of Earth. That day, the crew made their closest approach to the moon, flying to about 4,000 miles above the lunar surface. During the lunar flyby, the crew communicated with a team of scientists on the ground, both before and after a roughly 40-minute communication blackout on the far side, to describe geologic features such as craters and canyons.

Just after breaking the distance record, the crew proposed names for two young, unnamed craters on the moon. The first they called Integrity, after their spacecraft, and the second they named Carroll, in honor of commander Reid Wiseman’s wife, who died of cancer in 2020.

Words have no meaning when Black Friday falls in April and lasts two weeks. Originally coined to denote the pandemonium and chaos when holiday shopping met football games after Thanksgiving, Black Friday has come to blankly mean “discounts whenever.”

And so when The Home Depot says they’ve got a “Spring Black Friday” sale going, what they seem to be trying to say is that springtime might as well be Christmas for the DIY and backyard set. It’s when you buy stuff. Except probably for yourself.

Anyway, most of this sale is not a barn-burner. But Home Depot loves a BOGO tool sale on the Milwaukee tools used and recommended by WIRED tester Scott Gilbertson. And Weber grills are $50 to $100 off, including a couple of WIRED’s favorite grills on earth.

Here are the deals WIRED is tracking on the Home Depot Black Friday Spring Sale, ending April 22. Or just check out the whole Home Depot Black Friday deals below.

$50 off the Best Gas Grill for Most Families

For years, we’ve been recommending Weber’s straightforward 200-series Sprit grills as some of the best grills at the intersection of value and performance. The build quality is good, the cook is even, and the heat on the propane burners is easy to adjust. Like all Webers, you can build your grill’s workspace out with accessories and snap-on options until it’s tong heaven. Spirit already starts out pretty affordable, with a 10-year warranty and porcelain-coated cast iron grill grates that make for easy clean-up and clean cooks. An extra $50 off is a nice cherry on top.

But note that while a Spirit is likely all the grill you’ll ever need for a large family, grill cooks who throw a lot of parties might upgrade to the Genesis E-325 ($849) for the larger searing area and higher BTUs, added storage and prep, and the option on a top grill. That’s also on sale in April, for $100 off list price.

BOGO Deals on Milwaukee, Dewalt, and Ryobi Tools

The other thing The Home Depot likes to do is offer BOGOs on tools—in this case packaging a $200 tool with a free $200 power pack. This is, needless to say, a nice deal.

On the Milwaukee tool ecosystem used by WIRED reviewer and inveterate DIYer Scott Gilbertson—favored for its mix of value, durability and pure power, an assortment of tools come with a free power pack.

But these BOGos can be a bit maddening to sort out on Home Depot’s website. So I’ve done a little legwork for you. Here are the links to the BOGO deals for Milwaukee, Ryobi, and DeWalt. You’re welcome.

Steep Discounts on Ryobi Yard Tools

Longtime WIRED reviewer Parker Hall has long held the belief that Ryobi yard tools are the most most slept-on tool ecosystem for home gardeners and landscapers, from mowers to chain saws to trimmers.

Part of the reason is service: At least in our region (the Pacific Northwest), Ryobi doesn’t make you send in tools to be serviced somewhere else. They instead keep a repairman on retainer, and he comes to you and fixes your mower. This is a wonderful thing. In any case, Hall says that he’s rarely had cause to call on his repairman. He just likes to know he’s there.