When not riding my vintage on-topic steeds I race the occassional sprint and olympic distance triathlons on a 2008 Cervelo Soloist Team. Most of the year I ride this bike in its road position, with drop bars and a normally positioned seat (74 degree seat angle). During the tri season (June through August here in Ontario), I switch out the drop bars for bullhorns mounted with aero extensions and, by means of a bespoke Cervelo seatpost, flip the saddle forward to move to a 78 degrees, which puts more weight forward, rotates my hips right over the bottom bracket, and makes me go fast in my tri time trials and in the run following--fast for a 48 year old guy with two kids, a full time job, and very limited training time. It takes me only a couple of weeks to get comfortable in the tri position, but I do use a longer tri saddle with ample gel padding in the nose, which makes a big difference. You'll most likely have to tinker with different saddles, seatposts, stems, and bars to find the right combination for your bike.
Modern TT bikes developed from the funny bikes you describe; one still sees them at the occasional triathlon among all the pricey carbon rigs. Triathletes were (and are) among the innovators in developing these bikes. A guru in that field is Dan Empfield, founder of Quintana Roo.
You can learn a lot by reading his articles on TT bike fit on slowtwitch.com, where tri geeks are as passionate about seat angles (and powercranks, sigh) as CR folk are about old Simplex and Campy gear. A search of the forum there will produce many hits on the topic of funny bikes and interminable discussions of bike fit.
Robert Aguirre Windsor, ON Canada
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