When the lowest gear isn't low enough

[alpinerabbit]

Hi all

When I've recently been training on hills and I need to change down I gear, I often find that my fellow riders have a lower gear on their bikes, so that they are able to keep spinning. Mine on the other hand doesn't seem to go low enough so I'm still struggling to get up the hill.

Is it just that I'm not trying hard enough?

Or that they have a bigger cassette in the back. - Count the number of teeth on the smallest/largest cog: what's yours-11-23?? what's theirs? a 12-25 or 12-27?
I don't really think spin class is needed to teach you better spinning.