Anyone riding 52/36 with 11-32?

I don't know about the science of it all but I'm happy with 52/36 & 11-32 on my Rose.
Admittedly, the bailout at the bottom end is of more use to me than the 52x11 at the top.

I wouldn't worry about the 'limit' set for the front, not with only going one more, a 50/33 should shift perfectly fine, again depends if for your chainset you can get a 33T, be worth it for the extra IMO if you're considering a 34T anyway.

Did my first senior club run(70) this year, I was more than able to keep up guys running 53/39 chainrings compared to my piddly 40/28. Don't follow convention, research and set your bike up for your requirement s

To answer your first post, I've been running 52-36 and 11-32 since last year's Fred and it's been great. Didn't help me conquer Hardknott and Wrynose but that's another story!

My twin setup on my sportive/tourer bike has a range of 18 to 95 gear inches. I can climb any hill spinning.
For general riding I use 11-32 cassette​ which reduces the climbing gear to 23 gear inches.

That is a fine box of sprockets.

You can bodge a couple of cassettes together but it can get spendy, this is my Suntour sprocket case that i keep for my old 5/6 speed bikes, you could choose anything from a 12 to a 36 and it look the bollocks too with the gold sprockets.

forget the 34t, go buy a 33t (dunno what your cranks are though) it's not much of a drop (3% ish) but if it means you can keep upright/keep going then it's worth it. a 34/32 is 28.36" with 170mmcranks/28mm tyre, a 33/32 is 27.53"

I'm lucky in that I hate mountains so I simply don't do them and my local terrain is rolling so i don't usually need really low gears, however one of my bikes I have a crank that allows me to have a 50/28 ring set up and anything in between, they're older but just as useful as modern cranks for touring/non competition and can be used with 10/11 speed set ups no problem. my audax/touring bike has a 26/30 low gear on it with a 12 tooth starting sprocket which is 23" but then that's a triple.

You can spin at 70rpm on a 20% gradient, you just need a low enough gear to do it with, a 24/36 would give you an 18" low gear, that would get you up most inclines even loaded, the older MTB cranks you could have a 20t inner sprocket for really heavy loaded duties, sounds crazy but people will happily spin at the same speeds as the pros going up honister (& as low as 2.5-3mph) in that vid and be a lot less unstable.

When I had my bike built up I speccd a semi compact with 11-28 cassette, but with a long cage derailleur to cope with a 32. I'm doing the Fred next month and have swapped out to the 32 to give me a gear of last resort. From general cycling around where I live (Chilterns) I've not noticed any significant change in the most regularly used ratios, nor when I went down to the Mendips a couple of weeks back for some hills !. Also, I have found no need to lengthen the chain when fitting the 32.

Okay,Okay,  I might of slightly over egged the pudding, a little.  I did drift out of my heart rate zone, but felt comfortable at 90rpm,  strava estimated I peaked at 1200Watts  

Gearing, yes 28 chainring and 32t cass.  I used a 11-40 cass when I rode up Mt. Teide, I was quite comfortable in the mid 80s rpm after several hours of climbing.  

Gear down and spin up for a way more comfortable ride.

28t chainring with 32t sprocket (not a 32-28) is 6.2mph at 90rpm on a 25c tyre, on a 16% slope in zone 2 that's elite level.

Agree with above though, keeping the legs spinning around is not only less fatiguing but it helps to keep your balance when the speed really drops, it's hilarious to watch some of the pros struggling because they didn't get a low enough gear and could just get off and walk quicker instead of caning their legs/lungs trying to push a gear that's way too high and barely making any forward progress/nearly falling off.

@4:28 in this on Honister is a fairly good example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y-DG7A2eqo

Wasting energy moving all over the bike/being out the saddle because you've nowhere to go gear wise compunds matters IMHO and can really mess with your head knowing you've more hills to come and that's the easiest it's going to get leg wise!

Oh and the 28-32 jump, big jump but like most of the cassettes these days they aren't really designed for the non elite/tourists, the prevelence of 11t starting sprockets is ridiculous and has virually no function in the vast majority of people's cycling.

I had a 14-30 8 speed Campagnolo cassette a few years back, with a 46/40/26 it was perfect for  touring, no big jumps and a decently low/high for pretty much everything I was going to do.

Those using a 40/42t sprocket now I think is insane, it'll get you up a hill but the massive ratio jumps, no thanks, it messes your cadence up no end.

CXR94Di2, I suggest you get on a ferry tomorrow and get yourself to Paris-Roubaix. Provided you stay in Zone 2, you could break solo from the start and comfortably get in about half an hour ahead of Boonen. 

CXR94Di2, "a long hill of 16 % at 90 rpm" in zone 2? At 100kg on a 32-28 that's somewhere around 585W. If that's 70% of your FTP then a little training on the boards and you could be breezing past Wiggo's hour on a Boris Bike. So I'm guessing that's not that long of a hill and you're actually going well past Zone 2 bar the HR lag. 

Look, I advocate spinning as much as anyone, and I agree with your general sentiment. But IMHO if you keep it above 70rpm, even if only just, on the hardest stretches of your local roads, then you should be fine. It's when you see new riders grind up at 40rpm on 7% gradients where I take some issue (mainly with the shops that push those sales). But I'd wager even Nairo Quintana avoids 15% gradients on his Zone 2 rides.  At least when he goes out on his road bike.

I find this to be the best way to compare ratios I've set it to compare 50/34 11-28 with 52/36 11-32.

http://www.ritzelrechner.de/?GR=DERS&KB=34,50&RZ=11,12,13,14,15,17,19,21...

Yeah. Science aside, i have exactly the setup you describe, it works brill for everything and shifts fine. The end.

I find this site illustrates it nicely;

http://www.gear-calculator.com/?GR=DERS&KB=36,52&RZ=11,12,13,14,16,18,20...

Shows a difference in ration of 0.08 between a 36 & 28 and a 34 & 28 and then the 36 & 32 gives you a 1.13 ratio.  So I don't think running a 52/36 with 11-32 is an issue, there's just not as smooth progression in certain changes.

(you might have to play around to get the set up you want to compare)

I have once - swapped out an 11-28 for a 11-32 so I had a bail out gear for Hardknott on the Fred Whitton a couple of years ago.

Worked fine, but be aware that it required a medium cage rear derailleur in addition to the new cassette and a longer chain, which may make compact chainrings your cheaper option.

Both my bikes have 50/34 on the front, one is a 10spd 11-28 and the other an 11spd 11-32.

On either bike I find it's fairly rare to be using 50-11, there are only a few longer hills where I get up that high (40mph).  On the climbing front I tend to find that unless I'm on my last legs I rarely go lower than 34-25, when I do need a bail out gear though it is nice having that extra cog on my best bike.

It may be because one is ten speed and the other eleven, but I haven't really noticed any difference in the jumps between cogs from the 11-28 to 11-32 - certainly not enough to bother me anyway.

The difference between 11-28 and 11-32 is small, you may not even notice. When you're on the 28t and needing to shift down then that 4-tooth step to the 32 tooth cog is very welcome.

As for chainrings, aren't you supposed to be able to replace the chainrings on a semi-compact with 50/34? And 50x11 is big enough for most people. When I fitted an 11-30 cassette last year I found I never used that cog so replaced the 11 & 12 with 12 & 13 from another cassette. This also filled the noticeable gap between 14 and 12.

Sheldon's gear calculator has more gearing permutations than you could shake a stick at.