Route Advice for newbie

I'm a newbie and hoping to get some advice on progressing. So far the only black trails I've done are Floppy Bunny and Expresso (and lower digger).

I wanted to head to Seymour and give Forever After a shot but I'm not quite sure how to get there. Corkscrew and Pingu look somewhat doable, so I was thinking of doing these two and then going along the BP but I see a bunch of comments saying it's hike a bike and tough. Would powerline (via corkscrew and mushroom trail) be easier?

I'm also keen to ride Asian Adonis but not sure on the difficulty of C-buster to access and exit it?

Anyone have any thoughts or advice? Or other trails to ride to build and progress from Expresso?

Thanks!!

Corkscrew & Pingu, then BP to Mushroom and down the powerline is a good way to get to Forever After. You can ride down BP from the Severed entrance to get to Forever After, but, in my opinion, that section is more difficult than anything on Forever After. The fastest way to get to FA is up the climbing route, then BP & Mushroom, and down the powerline.

Getting to Asian Adonis is super easy now with the new "Dickie" line that goes around the rock roll at the entrance to Severed. It shows as a black on Trailforks, but its really a blue. C-Buster to AA is pretty straightforward. The easiest exit is to take Adonis Buster back to Lower C-Buster, and then Rapid Transit to Slippery Salamander, on which you can go in either direction to get back on Bridle.

A good progression to Seymour blacks would be John Deer --> Asian Adonis --> Forever After --> Pingu --> Severed --> Pangor --> Dales.

^^^

seconded

The only addition I would make to that is if you like to climb considering climbing up from Riverside. A favourite loop of mine is to do Fisherman's, Bridle, R&R, PennyLane/GSM and then take BP across and and down to the powerlines to access Forever After. The BP section from Severed to the powerlines is more challenging than Forever After for the most part as PaulB said, but there are two moves on FA that are harder than anything on that part of the BP IMO. Then once you get down FA, instead of just going straight back to Fishermans the way you came in, when you hit Hyannis at the end of Bridle turn right instead of left and head North. After 5 minutes or so you'll cross a bridge over the creek and then go up a slight incline where there'll be a drop on your right. Take the trail by that drop, Ned's Connector, and follow that onto Greenland and then on to Bottletop which goes back down to Fisherman's. It adds about another 15-20 minutes of good trail riding instead of riding out the gravel path of Hyannis/Bridle back to fishermans. I usually park in front of the rock/garden supply place across from the Mobil gas station at Superstore as it gives a nice 10 warm-up before you start going up and there are no parking restriction there like there are on Riverside drive.

Great shout to add in Bottletop. It's a great trail to finish on and on warmer days you can finish with a dip in the river.

Was FA changed from a blue to a black recently? I guess it makes sense because, as has been noted, there are a few tricky moves on FA which don't have ride arounds. I feel Dales is a good step up from FA.

Shout out for Boogie Nights, you'll love it. You can get to it from Pangor. The Boogie to Pangor connector is shown incorrectly on Trailforks, it just flows into it.

https://www.trailforks.com/trails/boogie-to-pangor-connector/

Forever After was changed from blue to black a year or two ago. Call it a hard blue or an easy black.

Sapphire ? 😉