OK, someone asked in another thread how to calculate power without a power meter while riding out on the road. That seems to be a complicated task. However, what I would like to do seems like it would be simpler. I would like to calculate my power output when riding on my CycleOps fluid trainer, based upon the speed of my rear wheel (a standard sized road wheel). It seems to me that this should be much simpler - no wind resistance, grades, or variable friction. The only factor is the resistance of the fluid trainer. The one complication I can think of may be if different CycleOps fluid trainers have different resistance levels.

It would be nice if someone else who owns a CycleOps trainer and a power meter could simply publish a graph of power readings to wheel speeds, but I haven't been able to find such a thing on the net. From what I hear, the trainer is designed to simulate outdoor riding, in that the faster you go, the more power it requires to increase your wheel speed by a given amount. So the graph would be a non-linear, exponential one.