absolutely, especially with 2lb-3lb tents and everything nowadays.
clothes arent especially heavy, thats a given, but one can see how it would be easy to add on weight for one person bit by bit depending on diff things--carrying some extra warm clothes, maybe full rain gear that isnt all lightweight (my better rain jacket is a bit heavy, didnt want to spend 300 bucks on a lighter one), maybe a heavier tent (mine is more like 5lbs and a bit, didnt want to spend 400 or 500 bucks for a 2.5lb one person tent) , add a camera, a laptop or a tablet, chargers for them, a cell phone, and you end up with X more pounds too, add in a spare tire and extra tubes if going somewhere where it might be really hard to find replacements-add a few more pounds, a water filter or whatever is a bit of weight also, maybe extra spare parts and or tool kit if going off somewhere far off and want to be really independant.
its that what I was getting at, that yes its easy to pack light or lightish depending on the situation, but sometimes the situation ends up being diff and its fairly easy to find 50lbs on the bike, especially for a longer trip with a wide range of temps and or more unknowns making it wiser to take extra stuff.
Totally. That weight I was quoting was with 4 tubes, spare tire, cables, brake pads, tool kit, fiber spokes, camera, phone, chargers for all the USB stuff, liquid fuel stove, elaborate cook kit. No water filter, cassette breaker, or computer. We found that a lot of the trick of going light is also going small: compression sacks for everything fabric, etc. Sleeping system is a great place to save weight and volume. We use a full tent with fly, but a light one. Also being on a tandem means a lot of weight saving because we only need bags, tools, etc. for one bike.