Maura Kinsella’s latest bad luck came in February, on the first day of the Tour of Qatar. She was caught in the middle of a pileup, 50 riders crashing together, and her left side came down on another rider’s handlebars. At first, she thought she’d punctured a lung. She was carried off the course on a stretcher, then taken to a hospital run by Cubans. Her Spanish-speaking caretakers diagnosed two broken ribs, one of which was completely displaced. She wanted some potent pain medication but was given only ibuprofen.
Worse, this race was Kinsella’s first back on the bike after she’d missed six months with a broken wrist. She sustained that injury in Minnesota during a similar wreck. Her adrenaline flowing, she hadn’t realized the severity of her injury and pressed on to finish the stage. Only later, after swelling sent her to the hospital, had she learned that her arm was broken in five places. She had spent week after frustrating week rehabbing, only to end up right back in the hospital. “I guess I got the first crash after the last crash out of the way,” Kinsella says with a laugh.
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The Webster Groves native grew up running cross-country. When that led to knee pain, she switched to cycling. In her first race, she crashed three times—and still won. She went to college in California, then decided to put off medical school to take a shot at full-time pro racing. Last year should have been her breakout season. While riding with the U.S. national team, she finished sixth in Le Samyn, a tough race in Belgium. But because of the injuries, she’s been stuck in neutral with her professional team, Optum Pro Cycling.
“She was super, super, super, super energetic coming into this season,” says women’s team manager Patrick McCarty, “so the crash in Qatar, I was pretty worried about how that was going to affect her morale. Obviously, her first race back, right away, boom, she gets another dose of broken bones, but she’s really bounced back quick.”
A few weeks after breaking her ribs, Kinsella is back on the bike training. Later this year, she hopes to ride with Optum in the Tour de France and the UCI Road World Championships, which will be held in the United States for the first time in about 30 years. She just needs to stay healthy. “I’m a huge fan of Maura,” McCarty says. “She’s really an entertaining person, too, a great sense of humor, and she’s a talented bike rider.”
Given the challenges she’s faced, it might come as a surprise that Kinsella is launching a lifestyle company, Happiness Watts, dedicated to finding the fun in competitive sports. What began as a hashtag (#HappinessWatts) is now a full-blown website with cyclist profiles, merchandise, and lots of Instagram photos of smiling athletes.
The name comes from the unit of energy, which cyclists use to measure how much power they’re generating. Competitive riders sometimes spend more time staring at their onboard computers than appreciating the scenery. Happiness Watts is a push to slow down and smell the roses, or eat a cheeseburger. “A milkshake every once in a while is actually going to be good for physical performance, just because it’s something that makes you happy,” Kinsella says. “I think that the psyche is really important for physical performance.”
And what gives her happiness watts? “Once I am able to actually keep the rubber side down and not crash,” she says, “I’ll have a bunch of happiness watts stored up.”
