Went out for an agressive ride with my group and at a stop sign realized that the bike was ticking. I pulled over and listened again and yup, it was not a normal noise. Oil level was good, coolant good, temp. was within norms. Here is a video, don't know if you can tell from the video but this is what I am hearing. Is it a valve issue? Could it be anything else?

http://i303.photobucket.com/albums/nn154/B_Mo12/th_RC51valveproblemvideo.jpg (http://s303.photobucket.com/albums/nn154/B_Mo12/?action=view&current=RC51valveproblemvideo.mp4)

I cant make out anything abnormal from the video.But I went for a thrash on ride, and upon returning home I had a tick from the engine, It turned out to be a loose exhaust flange where it exit's the head.

Yeah I can hear the ticking in the video.
Hard to say what it is though.
How long has it been since the last valve check/adjust?
Might have one valve out of tolerance.

The bike still has less than 6k on her. I am the second owner and have no idea if they were checked. I am getting the motor checked out tomorrow, if its not something horrible I am thinking about porting the head. Anyone done this? Against this or for this? Anything else I might do while the motor is torn apart. Not looking to go crazy just some minor work that will help performance a little.

What's the history on the bike?
With 6000 miles, the valves are no where near their check/adjustment period (every 16K miles).
And since the ride, have you determined the ticking is indeed at the top end or have you localized the noise elsewhere?

I had the motor checked out and looks like the front head is trashed. Damaged the front cam gear bearing or whatever it is properly called. New head is on the way. Weird how only one cam was affected and not the other. It was the front most cam. Could been from oil? Was running Repsol and found out that this is not a good oil to be running. Could oil heated up and pushed back in the head? I suspect the damage happened in high rev and high mph for prolonged time (10-15 secs maybe). Lets hope this new head will fix it and be running asap, I don't like sitting around while others get to ride lol.

I think I am having the same problem. I couldn't hear it very well in your video, but is it pretty loud when idling? And is it really pronounced when you hold the throttle around 3k rpms? Mine has been doing it for a while but lately it is getting a lot worse. Just don't have the time to take it to the shop. How much did they estimate the repair work? Did you take it to a Honda dealer or a local shop?

My bike just started making a ticking sound that will come and go. Right now I have almost 27k on it. Being a automotive tech I found that it was coming from the top of the engine. Not being comfortable doing a valve job myself I loaded the bike in the back of the truck and droped it off at racers edge to have them check it out I really hope it's nothing serious like a head and it's just in need of a shim kit. Plus they are going to kill to birds with one stone I will get my fork seal fixed at the same time.