Arden Rossi was still in middle school when the pandemic upended life as she knew it. The extra free time and being stuck indoors led her to join her dad in the great outdoors, mountain biking.
Now, Rossi, a Kearsarge alumna from Georges Mills, will represent New Hampshire on the biggest stage in mountain biking, riding for Team USA at the 2026 UCI Mountain Bike Marathon World Championships in Italy.
The Roanoke College sophomore, who’s studying biotechnology and mathematics, recently decided to go pro and join Team KellCat Racing, a New England-based all-women’s team.
“I decided this is what I want to do,” Rossi said. “I really love mountain biking and racing, so I kept training this year. I kept doing like smaller races, and then in July I did nationals, where I did really well.”
It’s a long road between the world championships and the trails and mountains near her home. She still remembers that first cross-country marathon race clear as a day, and winning the junior expert category: the Vermont 50.
The path to the top wasn’t straightforward, but neither is any trail in a mountain biking course. Rossi faced every challenge head-on.
The biggest was when she suffered a concussion in early March 2025. It kept her off a bike for months. She left her junior training team because she didn’t feel supported through recovery, and had to figure out why she even mountain biked in the first place.
That’s where Kelly Catale comes in. Catale had been a mentor for Rossi when she was growing up in the New England mountain biking circuit, and Rossi reached out for guidance.
Quickly, Catale asked Rossi the most important question. She asked what she wanted out of mountain biking.
“I just really wanted to rediscover that joy and like have fun with my training, and not be like so focused on like the numbers or hitting a certain power or speed or any of that,” Rossi remembered telling Catale.
And that’s what she did. Rossi joined Team KellCat and found a home in its more holistic approach to athlete development. Clearly, it worked, and Rossi’s successful results won her a spot across the pond in Italy.
Rossi is a two-time national mountain biking silver medalist and aims to bring her best to the grueling 82-kilometer marathon-distance race. San Martino di Castrozza, an alpine village tucked away in the northeastern Alps of Italy, should offer challenging terrain across the entire stretch.
“Marathon, I feel like it’s also hard, but I find it harder and more challenging because you have to push your body for such a long amount of time without, like, blowing up or having to stop,” Rossi said.
Rossi is still raising money to cover travel, lodging, equipment, and race expenses — enough to get to Italy and stay for the week as she tackles the most challenging race of her budding career. More information can be found by emailing her at arden.rossi310@gmail.com.