Ice Age Alley

Difficulty:

All Stages

Notes:

Losing the bird is a huge time loss, especially if it happens early. It's recommended to avoid getting the halfway barrel even as a beginner, as playing the level without the bird takes a very long time and is quite difficult.
Begin the stage by holding left and Y (this is one of the few stages that will allow you to buffer your roll input upon entering), then jump just over the DK barrel shortly after. If you jump too soon you can expect to get nutted on by that Nasty Necky (yea...).
On versions 1.0 and 1.1 you can simply run through the Mini Neckys - only their nuts will harm you.
When landing on uphill slopes, try to buffer your jump so that you don't lose speed from running.
Running down slopes on Expresso makes you go quite fast.
To land on the downward slope at 0:20, you will need to space your flutters out well and time your descent fairly precisely. A lot of runners bail out on this strat because being too low = death.
If you properly time a jump into the exit, you can get a Fast Exit that saves up to 5 frames.

Notes:

Only use this if you are really struggling with Expresso. It is much, much slower.