Easily going steep uphill - would "extra" low gear help?
I've tried web search but did not find info on that specific idea. I've found general article how steep bike can go, where main obstacle was stated as low traction (when falling back is taken care of by leaning forward), the limit they somehow got around 40% grade. (I'm new and not allowed to post URLs.. so name of article is how-steep-is-too-steep-when-cycling-uphill, maybe you can find it if interested).
I wanted to test and see how steep I can ride. I could not go even much less than 40% grade uphill today due to not having enough strength to push pedals, traction against grass was not a problem.
My bike has lowest gear of like 22 front x 42 rear (3x9 gears) and in case of "optimal" cadence of 80 rpm I calculated to have speed of ~5 km/h.
Yes, I'm not very strong physically and therefore I think maybe procure small sprockets, like 11T for front. As I now see there are no such cranksets for sale. I have "old" square crankset, 11T would not fit for bolts, too small. Can you advice some cheap/simple solution for custom design of having small sprocket for front? Or maybe simpler to make big one (like 100T) for rear? Would it be feasible to go uphill at speed of 2 km/h? Would load on sprockets be higher than going faster by pushing harder with higher gear?
P.S. by web searches results seams everybody are interested in going faster, not slower (but steeper uphill), no interest in finding lowest gear...