Port Jervis is a river town at the point where three states meet, and the meeting is the first thing the place wants to tell you about. At a spot where the Neversink River runs into the Delaware, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania come together, and a stone monument, set up in the 1880s, marks the point. The town itself lies on the New York side, with the pale hills of the Kittatinny Ridge in New Jersey rising to the south and the Pennsylvania bank across the water at Matamoras. About nine thousand people live here, and there is all the fuel, coffee and breakfast any rider could ask for.
The town grew up with canals and railways. The Delaware and Hudson Canal, which carried anthracite coal from the Pennsylvania mines to the Hudson River, passed through here, and later the Erie Railroad built a major yard and a repair shop, which employed generations of local people. The Erie still gives the place its character, with old brick buildings, a handsome railroad station and a busy main street. Today it is a commuter link and a popular gateway to the Upper Delaware, and the diners and bakeries do a good trade with weekend visitors on bikes, canoes and motorcycles.
For a rider the town is the start of one of the loveliest river roads in the north-east. Route 97, which heads north-east along the Delaware, is a narrow, curving, scenic road with the river on one side and the rock on the other, and it begins just outside the town. The surface is generally good, though frost heaves can be rough in spring, and the road is popular, so on a sunny summer weekend you will share it with plenty of other bikes. The best times to ride are early on a weekday morning, or in the first week of October, when the leaves turn.
For food, the local diners serve generous breakfasts, and there are pizza places, bakeries and cafes along the main street. Fuel stations are on the main roads on the edge of town. The climate is typical of the upper Mid-Atlantic, with warm, humid summers, cold winters and sudden thunderstorms. Be careful on the bridge decks, which can be slippery when wet, and watch for deer at dusk, since they are common.