Originally Posted by
superdex
I was basing my response on his qualification of road biking. On a mountain bike, sure, go as low as you can stand (see what I did there?). On pavement, past a certain gradient, you're just gonna have to hump it or walk it.
It's possible to build a road bike with gearing that goes
far lower than typical "road" options, even while staying mostly within "road" derailleur and shifter ecosystems. Like, it's fairly easy to coax the multi-ring GRX derailleurs into handling 11-42 cassettes (even though they're officially spec'd for 34T/36T), and there are off-the-peg road-q-factor cranksets with small rings in the 20s.