rest-client gem is too slow

nethttp_vs_restclient.rb

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
require 'rest_client'
require 'net/http'
require 'benchmark'

time = Benchmark.realtime do
  url = URI.parse('http://bit.ly/4okpb2')
  req = Net::HTTP::Head.new(url.path)
  res = Net::HTTP.start(url.host, url.port) {|http|  http.request(req) }
end
printf("NET::HTTP => Time elapsed %0.3f seconds\n", "#{time}")

time = Benchmark.realtime do
  RestClient.head('http://bit.ly/4okpb2')
end
printf("RestClient => Time elapsed %0.3f seconds\n", "#{time}")

Very interesting, but weird... I ran a few more tests to dig in as we use rest-client fairly often.

https://gist.github.com/danmayer/6104806

Any idea why it would very so much, seemingly more related to bitly requests verus others?