The Specialized Diverge Pro 4 makes rough gravel your playground
The Specialized Diverge Pro 4 makes rough gravel your playground
Specialized Diverge Pro 4 让崎岖碎石路成为你的游乐场
When I make my yearly trip to Denver, I always bring my road bike. It’s my annual chance to suffer on the kinds of gradients unavailable in the glacier-scoured lands of northeastern Illinois. In advance of this year’s trip, Specialized hooked me up with its new gravel bike, the Diverge Pro 4, so I brought it with me to challenge it in ways not possible on the fastidiously groomed gravel trails of suburban Chicago. 每当我进行年度丹佛之旅时，我总会带上我的公路车。这是我每年一次的机会，去挑战那些在伊利诺伊州东北部冰川冲刷后的平原地区所无法体验到的坡度。在今年出发前，Specialized 为我提供了他们的新款砾石公路车 Diverge Pro 4，所以我把它带上，去挑战那些在芝加哥郊区精心修整的碎石小径上无法实现的骑行体验。
In contrast to the Specialized Turbo Creo 2 we reviewed a couple of years ago, the Diverge Pro 4 is strictly human-powered. Specialized calls it “the ultimate getaway vehicle,” designed with input from off-road adventure riders, scientists, and racers. It’s marketed as the only gravel bike you need for racing, adventure, and distance rides. While I can’t speak to its racing performance, I can say the Diverge Pro 4 is a blast on any kind of gravel and does well enough on the road. 与我们几年前评测过的 Specialized Turbo Creo 2 不同，Diverge Pro 4 完全依靠人力驱动。Specialized 将其称为“终极逃离座驾”，其设计参考了越野探险车手、科学家和职业赛车手的建议。它被定位为一款能满足竞赛、探险和长途骑行需求的“全能型”砾石车。虽然我无法评价它的竞技表现，但我可以肯定，Diverge Pro 4 在任何碎石路面上都充满乐趣，在公路上的表现也相当不错。
Priced at $8,249, the Diverge Pro 4 is designed for rough trails and technical descents, both of which unfolded below me at the summit of an is-it-gravel-or-is-it-single-track climb in Douglas County, Colorado. I took a deep breath, and down I went. The descent was rutted and slightly more technical than anything I’ll ever run into around Chicago, but I had enough time on the bike to realize that if I had trouble on the descent, it wouldn’t be the bike’s fault. Diverge Pro 4 售价 8,249 美元，专为崎岖小径和技术性下坡而设计。在科罗拉多州道格拉斯县的一座山顶上，面对着那条难以分辨是碎石路还是单行道的下坡，我深吸一口气，冲了下去。这段下坡布满车辙，比我在芝加哥遇到的任何路况都要复杂，但经过这段时间的骑行，我意识到如果我在下坡时遇到麻烦，那绝不是这辆车的问题。
A “shocking” update
“震撼”的升级
To understand what makes the Diverge Pro 4 stand out, I’ll start with my favorite feature. Future Shock 3.3 is Specialized’s suspension system, and it’s a significant upgrade over the earlier versions used on the Turbo Creo 2 and Diverge Pro 3. The mechanism lives between the head tube and stem. It isolates the rider from high-frequency impacts while adding relatively little weight and without changing the bike’s steering geometry or introducing brake dive—two compromises that can come with conventional suspension forks. 要了解 Diverge Pro 4 的过人之处，我得先从我最喜欢的功能说起。Future Shock 3.3 是 Specialized 的避震系统，相比 Turbo Creo 2 和 Diverge Pro 3 上使用的早期版本，它有了显著提升。该机构位于头管和把立之间。它能将骑行者与高频震动隔离开来，同时几乎不增加重量，也不会改变自行车的转向几何结构，更不会产生刹车点头现象——这正是传统避震前叉常有的两个弊端。
The fork, head tube, and front wheel remain rigidly connected, with the stem and handlebars moving vertically relative to the rest of the bike. Future Shock uses hydraulic damping to control the movement of the spring inside the head tube. A spring by itself will just compress and return the stored energy, which can lead to a pogo-stick-like experience on bumpy roads and gravel. The damper converts some of that energy into heat by forcing fluid through a controlled pathway. The result on nasty terrain is controlled vertical movement rather than a bouncy rebound. 前叉、头管和前轮保持刚性连接，而把立和车把则相对于车身进行垂直运动。Future Shock 利用液压阻尼来控制头管内弹簧的运动。单纯的弹簧只会压缩并释放储存的能量，这在颠簸的碎石路上会导致类似“弹簧高跷”的糟糕体验。而阻尼器通过迫使液体流经受控通道，将部分能量转化为热量。在恶劣地形上，其结果是受控的垂直运动，而不是剧烈的回弹。
20 mm doesn’t sound like much, especially to anyone accustomed to mountain bikes with 100 mm or more of suspension travel. But Future Shock isn’t trying to keep a wheel planted while you launch off a rock. Its job is to prevent a stream of smaller impacts from traveling through the handlebars, into your hands, arms, shoulders, and eventually your increasingly annoyed brain. And it’s very good at it. 20 毫米的行程听起来不多，尤其是对于习惯了拥有 100 毫米或以上避震行程的山地车手来说。但 Future Shock 的目的并不是让你在飞跃岩石时保持车轮贴地，它的任务是防止无数细小的震动通过车把传导至你的手掌、手臂、肩膀，最终传到你那日益烦躁的大脑中。而且，它在这方面表现得非常出色。
Specialized says laboratory testing showed up to a 53 percent reduction in peak impact at the bars versus competing setups. That’s an impressively precise number generated under equally precise laboratory conditions, so don’t read it as “every bump feels 53 percent smaller.” But whatever the decrease，the underlying effect wasn’t difficult to detect, as I felt less arm and upper-body fatigue after long rides than I experience on my own gravel bike. Specialized 表示，实验室测试显示，与竞品相比，车把处的峰值冲击力降低了高达 53%。这是一个在精确实验室条件下得出的惊人数字，所以不要将其简单理解为“每一次颠簸的感觉都减小了 53%”。但无论具体数值如何，其带来的实际效果不难察觉：在长途骑行后，我感到手臂和上半身的疲劳感明显低于我平时骑自己的砾石车时的状态。
Compression damping can be adjusted on the fly with a dial at the top of the stem, changing how readily the system moves through its 20 mm of travel. At the firmest setting, Future Shock moves very little under normal riding loads; open it up, and the bars move much more freely over bumps. After some experimentation, I left it fully open on nearly every surface. 压缩阻尼可以通过把立顶部的旋钮进行实时调节，从而改变系统在 20 毫米行程内的响应灵敏度。在最硬的设置下，Future Shock 在正常骑行负载下几乎不会移动；将其打开后，车把在颠簸路面上则能更自由地活动。经过几次尝试，我几乎在所有路面上都将其保持在完全开启的状态。
Specialized made a number of other changes from the Diverge Pro 3, all of which are positives in my book. The Diverge Pro 4 sports the bike maker’s mid-range FACT 9r carbon frame with reworked geometry that offers longer reach for better weight centering. With the bottom bracket sitting 5 mm lower, the rider’s center of gravity is lower, contributing to a more planted feel in corners. All told, the Diverge Pro 4 weighs in at 8.72 kg. Specialized 对 Diverge Pro 4 做了许多其他改进，在我看来都是积极的。Diverge Pro 4 采用了该品牌中端 FACT 9r 碳纤维车架，并重新设计了几何结构，提供了更长的 Reach（前伸量），以实现更好的重心分配。五通位置降低了 5 毫米，使骑行者的重心更低，有助于在过弯时获得更稳健的抓地感。总而言之，Diverge Pro 4 的整车重量为 8.72 公斤。
Although the Diverge Pro 4 comes with 45 mm tires, there’s more than enough clearance for 50 mm tires—in fact, the Diverge I reviewed came with a set of 50 mm Terra TLR Trail gravel tires mounted on the tubeless-ready Roval Terra CL carbon wheelset. The Diverge Pro’s drivetrain is the SRAM Force XPLR E1, which comes with a single 40t chainring; a 13-speed, 10–46 cassette; and programmable bonus buttons on the brake hoods. 虽然 Diverge Pro 4 原厂配备 45 毫米轮胎，但其预留的间隙完全可以容纳 50 毫米的轮胎——事实上，我评测的这辆车就安装了一套 50 毫米的 Terra TLR Trail 砾石胎，并搭配了支持真空胎的 Roval Terra CL 碳纤维轮组。Diverge Pro 的传动系统采用了 SRAM Force XPLR E1，配备单盘 40T 牙盘、13 速 10–46T 飞轮，以及刹车手柄上可编程的辅助按钮。
It’s a fantastic groupset, offering the same features as the pricier SRAM Red drivetrain in a slightly heavier, less-expensive package. The rear derailleur mounts to a replaceable Universal Derailleur Hanger, or UDH, which means a bent hanger is easier to replace than a proprietary one. I found the gear ratios to be more than adequate for anything outside of dropping the hammer on a flat segment of smooth tarmac, and I really appreciated the gearing on climbs while laboring up steep gradients on the big sprocket. 这是一套出色的套件，它以更低的价格和略微增加的重量，提供了与更昂贵的 SRAM Red 传动系统相同的功能。后拨安装在可更换的通用尾钩（UDH）上，这意味着如果尾钩弯曲，更换起来比专有型号容易得多。我发现其齿比足以应对除在平坦柏油路上全力冲刺之外的任何路况，而且在爬陡坡时，使用大飞轮带来的齿比优势让我倍感轻松。