Unbound Gravel has quickly become a hotbed of new and unreleased tech. Last year saw a prototype Allied Able gravel bike, one of our first looks at the Classified groupset, unreleased Trek gravel bikes, and a whole lot more. This year, it looks like Specialized has a new Diverge gravel bike around the corner.
There’s hardly any detail to be found in our best glimpse of the new bike.
The first thing to note is that the Specialized Future Shock has stuck around, or at least some variation of it. There’s at least one cable routed externally from the handlebars, while the current Future Shock prevents the bike from having any form of internal cable routing. One screenshot indicates that there is some variation of a rebound remote that controls just how much suspension there is, or locks it out if necessary.
One critical change that seems to be on this new bike is the addition of a one-piece cockpit. The details are scarce, but it appears that this bike features what looks like a Roval Rapide Cockpit, a one-piece handlebar and stem that is often spec’d on the Specialized Tarmac. The current Diverge requires a special stem to take advantage of the Future Shock, so it remains to be seen if this new bike will be compatible with non-Future Shock-related stems.
Out back appears to be an addition of SRAM UDH (Universal Derailleur Hanger). The current Diverge lacks the ability to run SRAM Transmission, limiting current athletes and riders to SRAM’s 12-speed groupsets.
The next bit is a three-pack mount on the fork blades, compared to the two-pack mounts on the current Diverge forks. Most may say that mounts are mounts, but a third point allows riders to more easily use an anything cage with a likely increased load capacity. It also appears that there is a set of fender mounts on the bike’s front and rear.
The rest of the changes seem minute. The transition from the head tube to the down tube is sharper than before, while the fork crown looks wider than before, too.
Is this a new Specialized Diverge? We can’t confirm, but considering that Specialized’s racers usually ride the lightweight Crux, it sure seems like it.
