Slow clone of ports from own git server

Apologies, not sure if this is the right place, but seems to have all of 
the right checkboxes: FreeBSD, GIT, FreeBSD repository... :)


I have my own git server (git-http-backend) via apache trying to manage 
my own clone of ports (I have a significant number of local 
modifications to ports that I am constantly trying to upstream).


A problem that I have is that if I clone from my own server it sits and 
hangs for ~30+ seconds while the git process on the server spins at 100% 
CPU.  (This is a relatively recent Intel Xeon, 2.1ghz, 8 core, 64GB of 
memory machine).  CPU at 100% pegged suggests it isn't IO bound (they 
are spinny disks).

Given the following output:

> Cloning into 'freebsd-ports'...

Hang happens here.

> remote: Enumerating objects: 5142670, done.


When cloning from the freebsd git sever for ports that hang is maybe 4 
seconds.  What do I need to do to get equivalent performance?  what am I 
missing?


Thanks!