Do you have to have special tools or can you lift up the bike with a standard moto lift? My neighbor is trying to help me remove the wheels for new tires and powdercoating. If you can use a standard lift, where are the appropriate contact points?
Under the bike, towards the rear of the engine, you will find two holes, one on each side of the bike. They will be either 9mm or 13 mm (or something along those lines) in diameter, depending on the age and model of the bike. That's pretty much the balance point of the bike or very nearly, and those two holes are used in all the lifting solutions for the bike.
The DIY solution for using a normal bike lift is to weld together an L-shaped piece of metal with a pin in it to create an adapter you put in each hole. Most of the lifting force will then go into these frame holes and lift the bike safely.
You might look at
http://www.r3owners.net/threads/lift-adapter-for-roadster.21358/ to see how others have solved it. In Europe, Kern-Stabi sells an adapter that's ready-made, but they don't ship to the US. The adapter itself is great though - expensive but IMHO kind of worth it, lifting the bike with it is child's play. Easy to put on, easy to slide the lift under, and 100% solid.
I briefly showed off my lift solution a little while back,
http://www.r3owners.net/threads/lift-and-lifting-adapter-thought-id-share-a-pic.22643/ - I could have DYI:d something but decided to just eat bread and water for a month and buy good stuff instead. Making some DIY stuff and not getting it 100% and dropping the bike off a lift would be much more expensive anyway.
The Flipmeister stand is a solid center stand type solution. The other one I'm aware of is a German product, from Becker Technik - I got one of those too first. They're a pain (relatively speaking, it's not that bad really) to get on the bike since you have to tighten a bolt under the bike before lifting, but generally it's probably a superior product. It has castors, so lifting the bike is super easy. Put the handle on the stand, and then stand on the handle. The wheels make the stand slide in under the bike easy as pie, and zero chance of floor damage. The Flipmeister stand requries you to move the entire bike "up and over".
