I just changed mine yesterday. I removed the lower right side fairing (you can leave the upper, there's enough room to work around it) and the tank. Remove the entire t-stat housing where it mounts to the engine, it's two bolts, one on each side. Just removing the housing cover to access the t-stat will not give you enough room to pull the starter and it's a bitch to get those 4 bolts out. After that, removing the starter is pretty easy.
You may be able to remove it without pulling the tank. If you got the tools to remove the inside t-stat housing 8mm bolt from the side, you will not need to remove the tank.
Good time to do a coolant flush also