Abstract: In western China many mountain rivers are featured with large bed slope, coarse particle size, less relative smoothness. The Cuntan river reach, typical of such characteristics, were selected in this study for calculation. We collected totally 5233 pairs of data for the period from 1954 to 2007, and made a comparative analysis on six classical formulae of bedload transport all in dimensionless forms and their calculation accuracies. Following the idea of Fredsoe's formula (1976) that is the most accurate, we assumed that sediment transport intensity varies exponentially with effective stream flow intensity, and have developed a dimensionless formula of bedload transport with two main variables, i.e. flow strength and critical flow strength for incipient sediment motion. Verification and comparison show that this formula works well for the bedload transport in the Cuntan reach and it can give a calculation accuracy higher than that of the classic formulae.