I would suggest melting the solder on the wire rather than on the tip. While melting on the tip is much easier , it is less likely to stick to the wire when soldered. This knowledge comes in handy when dealing with tiny electronics using .5mm thick solder
. Heat up the componenet or wire connection itself. When it is hot , the solder will melt on it but also stick to it which won't happen with a cold wire. If you are dealing with a sensitive component or a thin wire , try to keep the iron on it for as littele a time as possible as you will melt the flex if you are not careful. If you simply can't do that , consider buying a heatsink for the component.
It is quite interesting you bring this up , I was thinking of botching up a hot pluggable diagnosis system using an Arduino ProMini for logic. It could keep track of RPM ranges , Top Speeds , High temperatures (read off ECU inputs) along with weak lines , battery voltage and maybe some other stuff. Since it is using a ProMini , the power usage would be small (about 3V) so you could power it on a small rechargable battery which could be recharged by the main bike battery (though I will have to figure out how). Problems would be indicated with an LED located near the clocks with a port so you can add in a screen and a few buttons to get even more information.
It would be a bit of work , but I think it would be interesting to read these things from the bike , especially for tuning purposes