Man, I forget who started this thread, but thank you! I was wandering the same thing before putting it away for the winter season. In the last few miles (about 100 ago) I changed the oil, and I removed both of the side fairings (the plastics, colored parts) and cleaned them thoroughly. I suggest if you are cleaning your bike to take them off. It's not that hard, and especially when like changing oil, one side is already off anyways. It's better at least for me, because it's a biatch to wash the plastics when it's so close to the ground.
I also tightened my rear brake, and that made a heck of a difference. A couple weeks ago I began locking the rear brake up and making it skid at stop lights just to get used to the feel of locking it up. I tightening of the breke did wanders, it WAS squeeking, but now it doesn't so that's good.
Anyways, that's the only thing that frightens me, is if I go get my valves synched... well dang, $250 for not knowing if the job was really done or not. Especially when that exact same place said the ticking was normal. So, in essence, if I paid that, had them "fix" it, and it came back to me sounding the same, I just lost all that money. No thanks dealer, I'm going to the local guy...
my 3 cents...
-Solace
P.S. I only had one big back-fire, and that was within the first week of brake in. Around 25-100 miles I'd say is when it happened, and then one other time, but that's it... I have an '03 by the way.