Devil's Staircase. Which Way?

Only ever done the staircase heading south (clockwise for you) and it seems to be the ‘right’ way in my mind.  Guess there’s more descent the other way, but mostly on double track unless there’s some tracks in the woods. that way you come down the A82 so slightly less time spent being overtaken by lorries etc than riding up it.

I thought the only was to incorporate the Ciaran Path.

https://www.alltrails.com/en-gb/trail/scotland/highlands/devils-staircase-and-ciaran-path

We started in kinlochleven. Had a day of slight climbing and then 10 min of decent. It was at that point I realized it would have been a much more fun day with a massive climb followed by a day of mild decent.

15 years on and I've still not been back to try it in reverse.

Hope you have a great day out either way 😀

Anti clockwise. Much longer enjoyable descent. Starting from GlenCoe campsite gets the least enjoyable A82 but done first.  Possibly in lighter traffic if you do a decent early start.

Clockwise the A82 section is shorter timewise because overall downhill.

You can avoid chunks of the A82 by using bits of the old road and paths alongside it.  Hardly worth it tho from memory - its not really set up to be used by bikes and I remember having to lift the bike over roadside barriers.  Most of the A82 has good sight lines and I have never had real issues on the road there.  Going up you are going slowly and its easy for cars to overtake, going down you go as fast as the cars thru the twisty sections.  You might have to be assertive in your road position on the twisty section uphill

Did it both ways a couple of weeks ago as I came in from the A82 and did the Ciaran path to make a loop.

As stated above clockwise is a lot of climbing for a fairly fast techy downhill. Fun both ways but if I was only doing one it would be anticlockwise.

I did it both ways on a Glen Coe ski-lift camp to FW & back day a few years ago, going north IMO is the 'best', coming back it was just a steep descent - it was a long, long day...

No way would I want to ride on the A82, and I didn't, used the WHW paths.

Interesting intheborders

I have ridden the A 82 glencoe several times and felt it was no issue .

<p>I’m probably 5 minutes from you right now!  Do it anti clockwise. There’s a rideable path part of the way up the first part of the Glen which will save a few road miles.  After that you’re back on the road.   Pm me if you want and I can give you more info. </p>

I did it about 18 years ago and went anti-clockwise. I remember a challenging climb followed by a descent which seemed to go on for ages on wide track. I enjoyed it at the time.

A couple of years ago I rode it from Kinlochleven, southbound, few loose techy bits, dodge the walkers, tight and twisty in places. quick snack by the road, [carry] back up, back down - fast, flowy, wide track, couple of vicious waterbars - rejoin the main track (old rail line?), east along there (bit sloggy) to the dam, cross under the dam, follow the ciaran path (awesome, techy bit of everything trail, I managed to get all the way down then fall off at the very bottom where it’s broadly flat and very easy riding!) back into Kinlochleven leven, debrief and cake.

Very very little tarmac.
Great ride.

Crikey, just realised that I first did this loop in about 1988, on a mate's little brother's bike, which was way too small for me (v-brakes, triple chainset, rusty chain).  We went anti-clockwise from the foot of the staircase.  The final climb back along the A82 is seered into my memory as painful.

Rode it again a few years back, whilst doing the WHW.  It's got about 500m of 'sort of' interesting riding, then it's just blatting down an access road into Kinlochleven, all the while dodging folk walking the WHW with hoods up and earphones in.

I noticed while walking down to Kinlochleven there were a few lines through the woods cutting the double track hairpins that looked a bit interesting.

As above, why not do it as an out and back and throw in the Ciaran path (better anyway IMO).

Quite a big ride but not massive iirc

Thanks all. Though I'd add some feedback here in case the search function ever works properly for anyone in the future.

Went anti-clockwise in the end (and glad I did).

First section from the campsite was along the A82 but it was fairly quiet (late morning midweek) and most drivers were pretty considerate. Not as scary as I thought it might have been. Could have dodged this by heading back to Glencoe village instead and taking the road up past the Clachaig Inn.

From the Clachaig Inn turning it's then possible to cross the A82 into the layby and pick up a surfaced path that runs runs parallel to the road past Achtriochtan and along to the viewpoint west of Allt-na-reigh. From here I picked up the road again but OSM suggests there is a path toght up to the abandoned farm - I didn't pick that up on the ground though so joined the road through the gorge for a few hundred metres. This was where I encountered the only dickish driving on the whole ride - a silly close punishment pass from an absolute throbber in a white Audi for having the temerity to delay them for all of 30 seconds.

Just after Allt-na-reigh you can pick up the path that climbs up above the road and across The Study (anyone know why it's called that BTW?). Once that drops you at a layby the path continues on across the peat pretty much all the way to Altnafeadh and is mostly unsurfaced. In dry conditions (if that ever happens) it would be OK to ride but I got fed up with jumping off and pushing through the boggy bits so cut back to the A82 and span along there right down to Altnafeadh - again not issues from traffic or drivers.

From what I saw, it's possible to get most of the way along the A82 from Glencoe village to the bottom of the staircase without touching the main road for more than a few hundred metres if you really didn't want to. Have to say though that my experience mirrors TJ's in that it's not a particularly scary road to ride. Guess that might change depending on time and day though?

The push up the steep side of the staircase was exactly as you might expect. Can see how it would be a fun, in places testing descent though. Dropping off the other side towards Kinlochleven was more mellow but still fun (apart from the 'rollable' water bar that had me jamming my 29 x 3.0 front tyre in the bottom and over the bars at walking pace while slowing for walkers after the first steeper section from the top).

The access road is super fast and sketchy in a loose corner kind of way but I didn't spot nay of the potentially more interesting stuff through the trees - if I ever find myself riding this again I'll deffo slow down a bit look for some of that as the gravel road is a bit of a waste of height in some ways.

The road back from midge-magnet Kinlochleven is just a necessary evil but was a drag into a headwind on big tyres.

Overall, happy that I did it this way round. Not sure an eight kilometre climb would make that clockwise descent worth it! Just a shame that coming from the west, it's pretty much a case of two long XC/gravel/road sections either side of the one bit of properly good stuff.

That was a lot of text! Best add some pictures too then...

Across the dam and Kierin path down to KLL would have been an option too. It’s quite technical in places from memory and while not on my top 10 list is probably still better than fire road down.

I remember a challenging climb followed by a descent which seemed to go on for ages on wide track. I enjoyed it at the time

I did about 10 years ago as part of a modified WHW and remember similar, but I was on a rigid MTB loaded up for camping so was pushing up. It was fun but not technical.

apart from the ‘rollable’ water bar that had me jamming my 29 x 3.0 front tyre in the bottom and over the bars