The mysterious front end noise is indeed coming from the speedo cable. Once disconnected at the front wheel, all was silence. Well, silence in a 2 stroke kind of a way. When I manually turned the cable, I could hear the noise I was concerned about coming from the headset.
When we took the speedo cable off the in the headset we wrapped a piece of tape around that dam nut that we dropped down the steering tube last time. (kinda thinking we did not want to repeat the fishing exercise) Maybe its flapping around in there.
If one were to take the headlight ring and light out you should see whats up when the cable is turned manually.
Pull the top of the headset, disconnect the cable from the speedo (watch that nut!), remove the inner cable and lube it with grease. Should be fine after that.