When I go up a hill, is it easier to peddle with the largest or smallest gear? (Of course the larger gear needs to be peddled more)
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smallest
Assuming your bike only has one cog wheel at the pedals and not two, it is easier 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. However, 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 great if you want speed but the mechanical advantage is against you and it will be very hard to pedal up hill.
Big gear for power, small gear for speed….
Large cogs were added to mountain bikes specifically to make hauling the extra weight up steep hills easier.
That’s why road cogs have 23-26 teeth on the bigger ring and mountain bikes have 32-36.
The only thing that may be difficult is the extra pedal rotations required to make it up the hill. You might run out of steam on the bigger hills.
Update: I’ll give Scott the benefit of the doubt & hope he meant the front chainring. The small ring on the front makes hills easier, while it’s the big ring on the back.