Originally Posted by
fietsbob
done it on a bike with a gear ratio that it takes 3 turns of the cranks to rotate the rear wheel once..?
on a steep , hard to walk up slope ?
Yes, I have. If you read my posts, you'll see that I have used a Mountain Tamer Quad with a 16 tooth inner ring and a 34 tooth cog on a freewhee And I've used it on a mountain bike on mountain trails of nearly every imaginable inclination on loose Colorado decomposed granite which is kind of like large marbles. It's not impossible. It's not even that difficult to do. In fact, that's the point of the low gears, being about to ride up steep slopes.
Originally Posted by
TallRider
yeah, there's definitely a point of diminishing marginal returns where you may as well walk. Somewhere around 2.5 mph at 50rpm. For 700c 28mm tires, that would be a 1:1.5 gear ratio, say with a 24x36 low gear (which is fairly normal for touring bikes)
Having walked my share of hills...it happens
...I would much rather ride up a hill at 2 to 3 mph than walk up the same hill pushing a bike.