Farmer by trade, Chris grew up in the hills of Shropshire, England. His passion for rallying and motorsport in general came from his father, who took him to Hafren forest at the tender age of 7 months to watch his first RAC rally.

He learnt to drive aged 7, writing off several motors on his half mile gravel drive/ss1, before passing his test at 17, subsequent cars written off were road legal. He moved to Aberdeenshire, Scotland in 2002 to a larger farm where he continued to rally.

George, the junior of Mainly Due South, grew up in rural Mid Wales, where men are men and the sheep run scared. He didn’t learn to drive until the grand age of 12 but soon made up for it writing off a couple of bangers. Meanwhile he was only allowed to go to school after work on the rally car was finished! In 2003 he moved to Edinburgh where he studied engineering for 5 years, taking advantage of the opportunities Scotland offered to go climbing and kayaking.

Come 2007 money for rallying had dried up, so, Chris along with George (who was still at uni and as such had no money either), decided to do the obvious thing and buy a yacht. Neither Chris or George could sail or had any money for a decent boat, Chris still can’t even swim! The plan got as far as buying a trailer capable of carrying a boat of up to 30’ as they realised that anything they could afford was probably unlikely to float.

Sailing plans came to an abrupt hault when a Honda CX500 was accidentally purchased whilst looking for a boat. That was it, the biking bug had bitten and plans were hatched to ride around the world... Neither Ice or Mav having a motorcycle license at this point.