i recently purchased a COLNAGO SLX SPIRAL CONIC, well that's what all the stickers say. i was hoping folks here could provide me with more info about this bike. most of the spiral conic's i have seen have the rear brake cable running through the top tube. they also have plain chromed lugs. this bike has braze-0ns and fancier chromed lugs. the gruppo is a mix of shimano 105 and 600 and the dating puts it around 1990/91.
the wheelset is a nice CAMPAGNOLO ATLANTA '96 that was appently put on in 1998. CAMPY dropouts and seatpost. SN C 601. all tubing is round COLUMBUS SLX SPIRAL CONIC. any info about when this bike might have been introduced and possible builds would be helpful.

A nice bike in the making. I lost interest in Colnago in 1975, when one shop boasted in having 500 due them that year alone. Nevertheless, they did redeem themselves in the mid 80's and have quite a following. Also, Ernesto is still at the helm.

This frame probably came as a frame set, If one were to find a Colnago catalog from the era, it probably shows Campagnolo. I would migrate to all Italian.

I can see what you mean. I have a Conic SLX I bought as a frameset in 1991. It has plain lugs and an internally routed rear brake cable. It also has straight bladed forks. Other Conic SLX's I saw at that time, and on e-bay, had the same frame features.

The tubes of your frame seem to match my frame. Plain tubes except for the down tube which is crimped and wider at the bottom.

My Columbus frame decal has a red border with Columbus at the top and Colnago at the bottom in white lettering. Gold fills the red border with the Columbus 'dove' and SLX boldly stated and Conic underneath the SLX.

I wonder if your frame is an earlier model (external cable routing and curved fork blades) where Colnago was experimenting with the the specs of the frame thus the high end lugs and 80's paint job. I think your decal set is an earlier set as my set has 2 vertical 'COLNAGO' on the seat tube so it can be read with a frame pump next to the seat tube or a second biddon is fitted.

It is hard to see, but does your frame have only one set of biddon mounts? Further evidence of an earlier frame.

I would say that your frame is more desirable than my frame.

yes only the one set of biddon's. the columbus decal on mine looks like the words 'spiral conic' were added on to a regular slx decal. thanks for your comments.

gary my downtube does appear to be wider at the bottom but it is not crimped

Looking at the photo you took of your bike (side view) it appeared that the down tube was tapered from a smaller diameter at the top and a larger diameter at the bottom. I just assumed that it had grooves or crimps pressed into the tube as my bike has. Other Conic SLX's i've seen have a similar tube treatment as mine. Perhaps yours is more 'special' than initially was thought. Perhaps someone else could help out with a more definative assessment of your frame.

As I stated, my bikes downtube is tapered. It is narrower at the top and gets wider at the bottom bracket. The 'crimping' seems to start just below the lever bosses and ends about 3 inches from the bottom bracket. The crimping starts at nothing and gets deeper as the tube increases in diameter.

gary i just went and checked my downtube and could not find and crimping. i will check again tomorrow, right now there is a wire running up the back of the downtube from a cadence counter and it is taped over i will remove some of the tape and check. i put some calipers on the tubes and the downtube is definetly tapered. the seattube is the same size as the start of the downtube and the toptube is a little narrower.
BTW i changed the ugly 'splash' bar tape on put on some black cork.

Don't bother removing the tape to check for crimping; you can't miss it. The crimping, as I have called it, is really is a series of grooves that has been pressed into the downtube. They are quite deep at the bottom bracket end. You really can't miss them. Colnago are known for their shaped tubing, it provides stiffness to the tube and makes the frames a little bit special. (Some other frame builders do special treatments to their tubes also, e.g. Benotto.)

By the way, I love the look of your bike and I think the black cork will look great.