Raleigh has revamped its Mustang adventure bike for 2018, ditching the curved top tube of last year’s model for a straight top tube and dropping the seat stays. It's available in three builds priced from £800 to £1,500 of which we've got the entry level model in for test.

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The Raleigh Mustang is essentially a hybrid bike with drop bars, built to do a bit of everything. Raliegh says "The Mustang is the star of our Adventure Range, designed for the real world of getting to work or grabbing some fun at the weekend". The Mustang is all geared up to see off the wilds of the UK roads and spend a copious amount of time galloping along gravel roads too.

There are plenty of images in the gallery at the top of the page for you to get your fill of what £800 of adventure bike brings you and we'll run through the highlights here.

All the Mustangs in the herd have aluminium frames paired with a carbon fork. The geometry is standard across all frames, so as you would expect, it's just the build kit that changes.

The range of sizes ranges from XS to XL and sees a 71 degree head angle, a 74.5 degree effective seat angle which gets half a degree slacker as each size progress, something to be expected with the longer seat tube. The seat tube on our medium bike is 530mm with a top tube of 560mm. Head tubes are size specific with a medium bike measuring 155mm. All bikes feature a chainstay length on the longer side at 440mm. 

The Mustang is saddled up with Shimano Claris shifters and derailleur, FSA cranks and front chainrings (46-30T), an eight-speed Sunrace 11-32T cassette and cable actuated disc brakes from PROMAX. The XLC wheels are fitted with Clement X'Plor MSO 700c x 36mm tyres which are tubeless compatible, making for hassle free riding. 

 
Cables are all routed internally and the frame offers mudguard mounts front and rear and also two sets of bottle bosses on the seat tube and down tube, really making the bike a 'commuter plus gravel bike' rather than all out adventure companion. We've got an e-bike version of the Mustang coming in for test as well, it'll be interesting to set the two side by side and see which way our heads and our hearts lie!

Check www.raleigh.co.uk for more on the Mustang series.