While most college students were clamoring for summer jobs and internships, senior BU rower Kara Eiber and recently graduated rowers Kat Haimes and Kari Oversvee decided instead to put their rowing endurance to the test by taking their bikes to the road, completing a 1,300-mile bike ride across much of western Europe.

The ride, which lasted approximately a month and a half, took Eiber, Haimes and Oversvee from Paris to Germany. Daily rides averaged around 60 miles, with the longest being 88 and the shortest 30.

‘The 88 was definitely a long day,’ Eiber said. ‘Thirty miles ended up feeling like a ride to the grocery store.’

The idea for a cross-continent bike ride originated when Eiber came across a website describing the North Sea cycling route a circle from the Netherlands through Scandinavia and on to Britain. While Eiber and her roommate Haimes didn’t have enough time for that route, they decided to chart their own course in a similar fashion, and Oversvee agreed to join them.

The three women usually limited their stays to two or three days in each locale, relying on the kindness of the international rowing community. Contacting people through a rowing website prior to their departure and explaining their journey, many rowers from the countries they visited opened their homes and their boathouses to these American college rowers.

‘People were really open to it,’ Eiber said.

The course they decided to take was somewhat haphazardly put together, as well.

‘We didn’t plan out our route before we went,’ Eiber said. ‘We’d look at the map and decide what city we’d want to go to and go.’

This lack of preplanning resulted in some interesting situations. Riding into Hamburg, Germany on a Sunday, when businesses are closed, the riders chose to eat at the only available restaurant, the train station McDonald’s. While Eiber greedily ate her hamburger, several generous Germans waiting at the train station walked over and put money in her McDonald’s bag thinking she was homeless.

Eiber takes it all as part of the experience.

‘There are points when you don’t really realize how awful you must look riding around with three pairs of clothes to your name,’ she said, laughing.

For the trekkers, rowing was not only useful for securing various room and board arrangements. The stamina they developed during the season was the key to surviving the long daily rides, Eiber said.

‘Kat and Kari are incredible athletes,’ she said. ‘I was the lower end of that spectrum. Our legs never really hurt that much. You just had to get used to sitting on a bike seat for hours.’

Overall, Eiber feels the trip was a great way to have one last hurrah with her BU teammates.

‘It’s such a great way to see the country you really get to see things that you’d pass by if you were in a train or a car,’ she said.

Haimes now attends the University of Toronto, pursing a graduate degree, and Oversvee has settled in Seattle, Wash.

Eiber, however, has found a new challenge in bike trekking. She plans to ride home to Seattle from Boston after she graduates this year on her new ride of choice her bike.