Hey Sam - this is a very late reply to your post but I only just saw it.

Having never worked on cars myself (not counting the endless duct and electrical tape jobs to my '62 Chevy II), I can say that working on motorcycles should definitely be doable for you. I did my first valve job on my '97 Ducati M750 (v-twin, air-cooled) and it was surprisingly easy. Bladecutter is a bike whiz and he coached me and it was rather fun. Until the temp dropped to around 40F (we did the work in an apt. parking lot and it got hard to hold onto the shims at that temp, lol).