hubgearfreak wrote:... what defines an ordinary? ...
I assume that this is the name because once it was the standard, or ordinary design of bike. When the new-fangled safety bikes came along with rear wheel drive and two wheels the same size, the old stuff had to be called something and it might just as easily have been 'the common or garden.' I suppose the name ordinary stuck (in CTC circles at least) because CTC BOFs objected to penny farthing, used by 99.99% of the population.
I can't imagine here was any sort of verification of the original ride just the stiff upper lip and you are only cheating youself if you say you did it when you didn't. On that basis somebody could now use any old bike they liked - the more ordinary the better I suppose. But unless they rode something pretty similar to a 19C original, all the BOFs would point out that in those days LBS meant local blacksmith etc.... A hiding to nothing.
IMO the shabby thing the UCI did was to define bike specification retrospectively in such a way that the hour record reverted to Eddy Mercx. They might just as well have said you can ride any bike you like so long as you are Eddy Mercx.