I Gave Claude Access to My Strava — Here's How I Built It

The author built a local MCP (Model Context Protocol) server in Python that connects Claude to the Strava API, allowing natural language queries about workout data. MCP servers act as intermediaries that give Claude the ability to fetch external data — in this case, running and cycling metrics from Strava. The setup involves registering a Strava API app, completing an OAuth2 authorization flow, and running a small Python program locally that Claude Desktop can call.