Member of the Month for January 2012
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San Antonio Wheelmen are ringing in the New Year with Jeannette Burris (on the left in the photo) as our first member of the month for 2012. Jeannette started with SAW in 2006 as a RES class student, preparing for her first event, the BP MS 150. She ended up having a successful and enjoyable 167 mile, two-day ride and soon after, she started helping with the RES classes.
Later in 2006, Jeanette was elected as SAW Treasurer, and continues to serve in that position. Cibolo ride fans recognize her as a co-starter of the Cibolo ride each month, and she has also started the Freiheit and Woman Hollering Creek rides. She assisted with the Easter Hill Country tour when SAW hosted it three years ago and proudly serves as the PB&J queen at the SAW rest stop each year for the Tour de Cure. Additionally she often leads stay-together rides and is frequently heard inviting RES grads to ride. She also volunteered to help with some city events including the kickoff for the San Antonio “B-Cycle” bicycle sharing program.
Jeanette started road riding in 2006 and mountain biking in 2007. She enjoys the road riding because it lets her chat with friends and see all the many RES students she’s met thru the classes that are continuing to ride. She also professes a love for mountain biking and the “challenge trying to dodge trees and rocks, sometimes not so successfully.” Jeanette’s road bike is a 2006 Bianchi Eros Donna, and she is completely in love with it and has no interest in trading it for another.
The longest ride she has completed was the MS 150 from Houston to Austin, but says her hardest ride was the mountain biking portion of an adventure race at Camp Eagle. Appropriately enough, Jeanette’s favorite rides are the Cibolo ride, because of all the friends she has been able to see each and every month for over 3 years. Jeanette says, “It’s like a social event and that’s what I love about biking.” Her favorite ride for scenery though, is a mountain bike ride at Camp Eagle in Rocksprings, Texas.
Jeanette is constantly on the move, taking on three to four sprint triathlons, one or two adventure races, and a few kayak or canoe races each year. She likes to mix these up and do races that involve all aspects as well. She started doing these activities when she turned 50 and feels that this activity “keeps me healthy and definitely happy.” For her 55th birthday, she challenged herself with a 100 mile canoe race, the Colorado River 100. Jeanette and her teammate finished in 19:53:26 to earn a 3rd place finish, and she notes, “We are proud to say that we were one of 133 finishing teams out of 260+ teams to start the race.”
She and her husband of 36 years, Michael Burris, have three grown children and two grandsons. Although she grew up in San Antonio, she spent 27 years in Alice, Texas. Despite moving back to San Antonio five and a half years ago for her husband’s job, she remains Administrator for the Alice Heart & Vascular Center, commuting for a few days each week, and then working remotely from home on the other days.
Jeanette says, “I know that taking the RES class in 2006 and then successfully completing the MS 150 gave me the idea that I could do anything with great teaching, some good preparation, and a lot of help from friends.”
Please join us in a tip of our helmets to Jeanette Burris, SAW Member of the Month for January 2012!