Using RideTool with Claude

If you already use Claude — the AI assistant from Anthropic — you can connect it to RideTool and ask it about your rides. Not generic internet advice. Answers from your actual data.

"Am I getting fitter?" "Should I ride today?" "How was my fitness last month?" "What was my longest ride in March?"

You install RideTool as a Claude connector. Once it's set up, every new chat with Claude can reach into your rides, your fitness, your bikes, your weight log — whatever you've put in RideTool — and answer questions in plain English.

What you'll need

• A RideTool account (the $29/year plan).
• A Claude.ai Pro or Max plan. Anthropic limits custom connectors on the free tier, so a paid Claude plan is what makes this usable. Team and Enterprise plans work too, with the owner adding the connector once for everyone.
• A few minutes. There's nothing to install on your computer — no terminal, no config files, no API keys to copy and paste.

Install it on claude.ai (web)

1. Sign in at claude.ai.
2. Open Customize → Connectors from the Claude menu.
3. Click the + and choose Add custom connector.
4. Paste the RideTool server URL: https://mcp.ridetool.cc
5. Click Add. A window opens to sign in to RideTool — see the OAuth section below for what's happening there.
6. When it closes, RideTool is listed under your connectors with a green status. Start a new chat and ask "Am I getting fitter?" to confirm.

The Claude desktop app uses the exact same flow — go to Customize → Connectors in the app's settings and follow the same steps. For Team and Enterprise accounts, the owner adds it under Organization settings → Connectors and members authenticate individually from their own Customize → Connectors.

Anthropic keeps the install flow up to date in their own help docs — see Getting started with custom connectors if any of the menu names have moved.

How the sign-in works (OAuth)

You don't give Claude your RideTool password. The connector uses OAuth, the same protocol you use whenever you sign in to a site "with Strava" or "with Google."

Step by step, the first time you connect:

1. Claude opens a browser window pointing at RideTool's authorization page.
2. You sign in to RideTool the normal way — Strava, Wahoo, Garmin, or email.
3. RideTool asks you to confirm that Claude can read and write to your account on your behalf.
4. RideTool hands Claude a scoped access token (not your password) and the window closes.
5. From then on, Claude uses that token to talk to RideTool. You can revoke it anytime — from the connector list in Claude, or from your RideTool account settings.

Two things this means in practice: Claude never sees your password, and you can pull the plug instantly without changing anything else about your RideTool account.

What you can ask

How am I doing?

• "Am I getting fitter?"
• "How's my fitness compared to 3 months ago?"
• "What's my power-to-weight right now?"
• "Should I ride today?"
• "When am I going to be fresh enough to push?"

Your ride history

• "Show me my rides this week"
• "What was my hardest ride last month?"
• "How many miles did I ride in April?"
• "Tell me about my ride last Saturday"

Your bikes

• "What bikes do I have?"
• "Add a new bike called Levo Expert"
• "How many miles on my Stumpy?"
• "Set my gravel bike as the default"

Logging body data

• "Log my weight at 165 lbs"
• "What's my weight trend?"
• "I ate 2,200 calories today"
• "Drank 48 oz of water"
• "Log injury: sore left knee after yesterday's ride"

Calories from a photo

Snap a photo of your meal in Claude and say "estimate the calories in this and log it." Claude will guess and write it into your RideTool food log.

What it's not

• Not a coach. It won't write you a training plan or prescribe intervals.
• Not a replacement for the app. The weekly emails and your Me card still do the heavy lifting — Claude is a way to ask questions on top of what's already running.
• It's a conversation. Ask it the same things you'd ask a friend who happens to know your ride history by heart.