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Aden, I'm in the DC area and would be happy to lend you my hard case for your ride in August. I'll be back home with it next week, so if you're in the area any time before your trip, I could meet you with it. (It's big like Mimi's, so you need a big car!)
Just PM me, and I'll get back to you after Sunday when my ride ends.
We just returned (a few hours ago) from a mountain biking trip to California. We flew with the bikes from Boston to Oakland, non-stop to minimize luggage transfers. We used hard-sided cases similar to the Trico and a Team bike case. Everything came through fine, although we took a lot of time packing, padding, and strapping everything together so nothing could escape if the cases were opened by TSA.
We watched the TSA agent hand search the cases in Boston, and nervously tried to give him instructions about how to latch the cases back up (the latches were a little tricky on the Team case). He did remove a couple of gear items that we hadn't tied down, but managed to get them back in OK. On the return from Oakland, there was no sign that they had been opened by TSA.
We flew Jet Blue, who still charge $50 each way. That was the cheapest we found on the airlines currently. The Jet Blue agents in Oakland seemed to be very familiar with handling bikes. In fact, they kindly added my special bottle of extra virgin lime olive oil that I had unthinkingly padded carefully and placed in my carry-on bag. Even the TSA agent in Oakland was kind and understanding as he pulled it out of my bag and escorted me back out of security so I could take it back to the Jet Blue counter and get it into my checked bag. As luck would have it, the baggage claim checks on my receipt were the bike cases. But they put it in the case and it arrived safely!
When I priced out shipping coast-to-coast through FedEx, it was going to be well over $100 each way for each bike. If you are not flying so far, that would probably be less.
If you use a cardboard bike case, make sure you pad it well. Someone put another bike on our flight home today in a cardboard box that looked like it came through OK, but the rear axle was poking out the side :(
The mountain bikes required quite a lot of disassembly to fit into the cases. Road bikes would probably have been an easier fit. For future travel, we are thinking of looking into the Velo Safe II. Both bikes could go into one box, reducing the airline charge, and should require less disassembly.
It was great to have our own bikes out there, but the logistics can be a little challenging!