The Ordinary is the official name for the
old-fashioned bicycle with the massively oversized front
wheel (sometimes called a "high-wheeler"). The idea was invented by James Starley of
Coventry, England, and the first Ordinary manufactured was a brand called the Ariel manufactured in England in
1872; before this time, there had only been the
velocipede, a
wood-and-
iron bicycle (even the
wheels) which could weigh up to 100
pounds and had its
pedals on the front wheel. Ordinaries were made of lighter tubular
steel and had
tires of solid
rubber with
wire spokes in the middle, making them both lighter to lift and less bone-rattling to ride. The pedals were still on the front wheel, but the large
circumference of the front wheel made the same amount of pedaling go farther, since
gears were not used until the rear-wheel-driven safety bicycle of the
1890s. The rider had to sit up high, above the large wheel, just to reach the pedals and still be sitting upright; the small back wheel was just for
balance.
The first American Ordinaries were manufactured in 1877, and within a few years they became a craze in the U.S.; the League of American Wheelmen was founded in 1880 and immediately started to campaign for better road surfaces and were quite effective in getting roads paved. ("Wheelmen" is quite accurate; the long skirts of the era prevented women from riding an Ordinary unless they were daring enough to wear pants.) It required courage for anyone to ride an Ordinary; their brakes were not all that effective and a lot of riders were pitched over the straight front handlebars when they ran into an obstacle. Or they just fell off; even getting on wasn't all that easy. But Ordinaries were still popular enough that accessories such as chain and lock sets, bike stands, bells or whistles to announce that you were coming, saddlebags, odometers, and oil lanterns for night riding could all be bought by 1879.
At the time, these were just called bicycles; the names Ordinary or high-wheeler came into use around 1890 as the safety bicycle with two wheels the same size came into use. "Penny-farthing" was another name for the Ordinary in England, since the two wheels looked like a penny and a farthing coin next to one another. The Japanese name for the Ordinary was "daruma jitensha" or "ichirinsha." As this shows, the Ordinary spread all around the world; by 1884 Australia had 30 bicycling clubs. However, the increased ease and reduced risk of the safety bicycle meant that in the 1890s, the Ordinary became obsolete.
Sources:
Ierley, Merritt. Wondrous Contrivances: Technology at the Threshold. New York: Clarkson Potter Publishers, 2002.
http://www.exploratorium.edu/cycling/timeline.html
http://www.fi.edu/pieces/payton/slide2.htm
http://www.cycle-info.bpaj.or.jp/english/learn/bcc02.html
http://www.phys.uri.edu/~tony/bicycle/bikehist.html
http://www.phm.gov.au/hsc/bike/history.htm