Even a request from the server itself takes about 7 seconds ( startpage of a "redmine" installation )..
When running ruby under WEBrick the same request only takes miliseconds...
I am absolutely new to ruby, so i have no idea where to start the investgation on this.. Or is the best solution to locally redirect the apache request to a WEBrick server?
If you want to make use of your apache setup, you can try mod_rails aka phusion passenger. The installation is straight forward and it performance is better than mongrel or webrick stack.