The 12-kilometer-long Guanshan Bicycle Trail (關山自行車道) was completed in 1997. It has been a stunning success: It attracted 700,000 visitors in 2001 and has inspired the creation of similar biking paths in other places, including Sinhua (新化) in Tainan County and Meinong (美濃) in Kaohsiung County.

Like many other beautiful places around Taiwan, Guanshan can get very crowded on weekends and national holidays. On weekdays, however, you can see this place at its bucolic best. On an unseasonably hot and sunny December Monday, we saw fewer than a dozen other cyclists. A few farmers on motorcycles (and, in one case, a tractor) were using the four-meter-wide trail to reach their fields. The only other non-bicycles were electric golf carts, which some elderly tourists prefer to pedal-powered vehicles and which can be rented from the same businesses.

Guanshan lies just west of the Beinan River (卑南大溪). The Central Mountain Range looms nearby, while the Haian Mountain Range stands between the town and the Pacific Ocean. The most important road here is Taiwan Highway 9 (台九線公路). It’s actually the longest highway in Taiwan, starting from Taipei City, wending its way through the counties of Ilan, Hualian and Taidong, and finishing in Pingdong.

Guanshan is on the Hualian-Taidong railroad. The hotel nearest the station (turn left as you exit the station and you’ll see it immediately) rents out bicycles, as do at least half a dozen other businesses between the railroad and Guanshan Waterside Park (關山親水公園). The park, which covers 32 hectares, is an excellent spot to linger for a few hours before or after biking.

Rentals cost around NT$100 per bicycle. Some businesses impose a time limit (e.g. four hours); others are more laidback. If you want to use the bicycle trail, you’ll need to buy a NT$50 ticket for each adult in your group. The same ticket gets you into the Waterside Park.

According to the Web site of the East Rift Valley National Scenic Area (花東縱谷國家風景區, www.erv-nsa.gov.tw), “There is an exuberance of green, and cool shade is everywhere. … Although the path is a little hilly, the slopes are gentle, and not too difficult. … You can enjoy the scenery, hardly aware of the effort that it takes, and before you realize it, you have victoriously completed the course.”

If you haven’t been to Guanshan, you might well dismiss such prose as tourism department puff. But it’s accurate: A few kilometers from the start, you’ll encounter a mild slope, which you’ll have no problems getting up. Suddenly, you’ll find yourself at the foot of the mountains, gazing out over the town. For around two kilometers, the path follows an irrigation channel that dates from the Japanese Occupation Era (1895-1945).

Then an exhilarating downhill stretch brings you to the bottom of the valley, where water buffalo doze in mud. From there it’s a short ride back to Waterside Park and the downtown area.

Most of the trail is shaded by mahogany trees or betel nut groves. Among the crops you might see grown around here are millet, rapeseed, jelly figs, pears, sugarcane and oranges.

We took around four hours to complete the circuit. It can be done much more quickly, of course, but why hurry when the scenery is so pleasing, the environment so clean, and the entire experience so satisfying?