Upgrading my bike to an ultegra group set... trying to figure out what the standard is for crankset and cassettes... I know what crank length I need; but is a 36/52 the standard? I'm ordering the parts online to save money; but I'm sort of overwhelmed by all of the options.

The “standard” I.E. likely the most commonly used is a 34/50 ring crankset and an 11-28 11spd. cassette.

And everything else Shimano sells, especially in cassettes.

It’s driven by the fitness level, style of riding (racing ?), terrain, etc....

What have you used in the past and what worked ?. I do a gear chart to see what gears I live in most of the time, add some extra capacity for the hills I ride and that generates the gearing. Since I’m on flat Long Island and on my most used Carbon road bike, rarely get up to 35 on downhills, am now on a 34/50 crank with a 14-28 junior cassette. Has a lot of one-tooth jumps, yet has the 28 to help me get up Hills. I’m also 63 and no longer race or do the AA rides so don’t need an 11 or 12 cog either. But bottom line is there’s enough options to tailor the gearing to your own style, once you figure out what works.

No no no the standard is 53/39 the semi compact or mid compact is 52/36 and a compact is 50/34 the most common one put on bikes in the bikes shops today is a 52/36 with a 11-28 cassette in the rear.

All depends on your needs, doesn’t it? Compact, standard and semi are all available with 110 bolt circle so you can always swap.

Yep, it all depends on your riding style. 53/39 or even 52/36 might be good for some and not so good for others, depending on your terrain and your fitness and your rear cassette and your personal cadence preference....

What gearing do you have now? Do you like it, or would you like to change something about it?

Forget what standard is and get what you need.
What do you have right now and do you like it? What do you dislike?
Buy based on the likes and dislikes of your current drivetrain setup.

Yeah, but the rings are about as expensive as the whole crankset, so it'd be a good idea to get it right the first time.

Depends where you live and how hilly it is and how fit you are. Also, if you're getting Ultegra 6800 or 8000, you don't need to worry about the BCD as they're all the same four bolt system, although it's worth noting that the 6800 and 8000 have different configurations so the two are not intermixable. If you have an 11-28 in the back and are reasonably fit and do not live in the mountains, a 52-36 should work fine for you. However, if you live in the mountains, are not very fit, or are not looking to do competitive riding, a 50-34 is more than enough for your rides. If you don't like it, you can upgrade when you change your chainrings. I bought a cross bike for my road riding, at least for now, so I'm running 46-36 and obviously 46 is quite small for the road but it works with an 11-28 in the back. When my rings wear out, I'll put a 52 on there and have a semi-compact set up, but there's little point in doing it now other than vanity as I'm not currently racing and the 46 serves most of my purposes as I don't do mountain descents very often.

If uncertain, skip the small and the large, and get the medium.

Had no idea this was a thing, that 52/36 became most common in bike shops. Swung by a local shop after a ride tonight and of the 51 drop bar bikes they had on the floor, only 3 of them had a 52/36 crank set. Took me a while to check 'em all too and the shop guys were like... what are you doing?

"Someone was wrong on internet."

I had a 53-39 and 11-25 when I first moved to Colorado but then switched to a 50-34 with a 12-30 or a 11-25. Now I am riding a 52-36 with a 11-28 and I like it most although there were places on Vail pass where I liked having a 34-30 that I am going to miss when I go back there.

At my age I go as low as I can go. Unless you are racing you never say to yourself "I wish I had a higher gear for this downhill", but you almost always wish for a lower gear for that long steep uphill. 50/34 with a 13/26 Campy 10 for me. I'm going 13/29 on my next cassette when the time comes. You have fewer options with Campy. I'm 63 and not getting any younger, but definitely getting stronger.

I'm on 52/36 and 11/28 right now, but next bike would certainly be 50/34 and 11/32. Lots of hills where I live and I love to climb.

If I had my way, I'd in fact remove the 11 and 12 teeth cog. So my ideal cassette is a 13/32, although Shimano doesn't make such a thing but they should!

You can go smaller than 50 for your big ring, if you like.

Maybe LBS, but a quickie perusal of some online stores - Performance, Colorado, Competitive, Jenson, showed out of about 15 different brands, 9 bikes had 50/34, 5 had 52/36 with a Masi at Jenson with a 48/32 (way to go !).

These were all carbon road, mixed prices, mostly Shimano, 2 Campy.

Hearing about the LBS experience and seeing the influx of 52/36 into the online sales market, which is not something I saw 6 mos,. ago, I'd say 52/36 is a trend, but that 50/34 is still the most common and has been for a few years.

Get a junior 14-28 and and an 11-32 then make up it up. Not cheap though.

Your bike shop must not be as cool as ours

Seems impossible for a thread to not devolve into some sort of inane debate. Funny thing about BF.

I use a 52/36 and love it, but have to 100% agree with you. Just visit Trek, Spec, Giant etc on the web & see what is currently offered. 50/34 primarily.

I previously used a 50/34 compact on a trek 1.1 with, if I recall correctly, an 11-28 7 or 8 speed (I believe it was a Claris groupset). When I upgraded bikes my new one came with 52/36 semi compact and an 11-28 11 speed cassette, Ultegra. Honestly, I didn't notice much of a difference in possible gear ratios, but noticed a HUGE positive difference between the 8 speed and 11 speed. my recommendation is to not care terribly much about the crankset when you're buying (it's reasonably cheap to by a few other cranksets for swapping), just make sure to get a 105 groupset or better.

Also, if you want to dig deeper into making sure you're getting precisely the ratios you want, someone linked me this once Mike Sherman's Bicycle Gear Calculator which has proven invaluable.