Big girl looking for bike to hold her goodies! Any suggestions on bikes 4me

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This seems to be a bit extreme to me as well. My Raleigh c700 is an aluminum hybrid and although i can't sustain high speeds as well or climb quite as fast while riding it, i wouldn't say that i was working more than 2x as hard while riding it. Maybe 20% more; so 50 miles on the road bike would be equivalent to 40 on the hybrid. And that might even be a stretch!

Here is a photo of the Trek Navigator that I had. I looked at the Raleigh c700 on the Raleigh website and it isn't even close to the beast that the Navigator is. I now have a Trek 7.2fx which is very similar in style to your Raleigh, and Trek calls it a "fitness" bike. Let me tell you, that Navigator was a ton heavier, had huge tires and that big suspension fork made it even less hill friendly. I couldn't believe the difference between the fx and the Navigator. I really think the Navigator should be classified as a comfort bike. This year's model even has that weird step through design that has become so popular on the Electra bikes. I also have a Jamis road bike, and I'm gonna go on record as believing the stats the lbs gave her. I've been there and ridden them. If I were to give advice on someone just starting, I'd say get the Navigator type if you are just riding around town, riding trails, stopping at a store, etc, and get the Raleigh c700 or Trex 7.2fx if you want to ride more than 20 miles on the road and then do some rails to trails.

Seems that each company's definition of hybrid varies considerably!