I'll be looking for an inexpensive beater bike for my son when he returns to Poughkeepsie NY for school. Not sure when. But does anyone have any advice how to get such a bicycle there? Flat bars. Maybe a hybrid rather than a MTB. Just for around town. He's not a cyclist. Or is there a better forum for such a search?
Thanks!

If you want to build/tune a bike, then "BikeFlights", as well as UPS & Fedex are popular for shipping bikes, but they still need a moderate amount of disassembly/reassembly.

How far away is your son? Around here, Amtrak is a good service for carrying "baggage" with a person, and also does some freight.

I'd encourage just purchasing locally. The two of you can share ideas about Craigslist ads. The best deals go quickly, but this is the off season.

Is it a college? Some of them have a student run bike shop, that buys and sells the various types of bike one would normally see on a college campus when students leave and arrive every semester. Otherwise, there are always old MTBs at my local thrift shops, some nicer ones if you wait long enough. May see if the school ever auction/sells off abandoned ones that were collected by grounds crews, too.

Vasser? yeah getting a mtb/beater where you live and shipping it might make sense.