When I go up a hill, is it simpler to advertise with the largest or smallest gear? (Of course the larger gear needs to be peddled more)
Gear Up Grand Stand Single Bike Floor StandThe Gear Up™ Grand Stand™ single bike floor stand offers portable, lightweight storage space for storing a bike at home, a… More >>
Disclaimer: This site is a paid affiliate of Amazon.com
smallest
Assuming your bike only has one cog wheel at the pedals and not two, it is simpler to go uphill when you have a larger cog on the back wheel. If the two cog wheels are the same sized, you will turn the back wheel one time for each rotation of the front pedals. But, with a smaller cog, say half the size of the front, each time you turn the front pedals one time, the rear wheel will turn twice. That is fantastic if you want speed but the mechanical benefit is against you and it will be very hard to pedal up hill.
Huge gear for power, small gear for speed….
Large cogs were added to mountain bikes specifically to make hauling the extra weight up steep hills simpler.
That’s why road cogs have 23-26 teeth on the larger ring and mountain bikes have 32-36.
The only thing that may be hard is the extra pedal rotations required to make it up the hill. You force run out of steam on the larger hills.
Update: I’ll give Scott the benefit of the doubt & hope he predestined the front chainring. The small ring on the front makes hills simpler, while it’s the huge ring on the back.