In the current Any% route, we do the following:

1. Collect the key, friend, and letters in Manic Mines and activate level skip
2. Skip Space Race
3. Collect the key, friend, and letters in Far Out and activate level skip
4. Clip through the wall and skip Perilous Pipes

I have yet to time this out - I came up with it while driving to school this morning - but I believe it will be faster if we do the following:

1. Collect the key and friend in Manic Mines and exit level once we have freed the friend
2. Collect the letters in Space Race and activate level skip
3. Collect the key and friend in Far Out and exit level once we have freed the friend
4. Clip through the wall and skip Perilous Pipes

Although this would involve us both completing and collecting the letters in Space Race, we will not have to collect the letters in Manic Mines or Far Out. We will also not have to go all the way to the ends of these levels and complete them - we can simply exit once we have freed the friends. Realistically I think this route could save 30-40 seconds - 1 minute at the absolute most - but I still have to time this stuff out, which I will do in the next few days. Thoughts?

Also, thanks to the new melon door skip in Spin Dizzy that Sky found a few days ago, it might be faster to get letters in Spin Dizzy as opposed to Barrel Blast, which is something I also have to time out.

it probably is faster, but it would be risky since dying on far out at all would be an instant reset

its definitely something to time and test out. It could be faster, i think its hard to say.

After timing everything out, it turns out that getting the letters in Spin Dizzy as opposed to Barrel Blast is slower by about 15 seconds or so, so the Any% route will remain the same for that portion of the game. However, the early game reroute I suggested saves roughly 1:15 on average (if done perfectly, maybe close to 1:30), so runs should start incorporating it immediately.