Well, if the answer's 'what everyone else does' then the overwhelming answer must be foot out motocross style. But, considering supermotards have a combination of road and off-road capabilities surely the rider, too, should exploit the two different riding styles?

Let's look at the theory. Why does a rider stick out their foot? On the motocross track the answer seems fairly obvious - to kick the bike up when the inevitable happens and one of the tyres lets go. If the rider didn't have their foot out then the law of probability says they'd crash, losing valuable places in the race and, therefore, valuable championship points (there's also the problem of ground clearance when in ruts etc., but that's not particularly relevant in this case). A motocross rider will also stick his or her foot out to increase the weight going through the front tyre to stop the front washing out in a corner. But is the same true for 'motard racing? Just what are a 'motard racers priorities during a race? To finish and, hopefully, to win - and if winning's not possible, to then at least get as many championship points as possible out of that particular round.

And how does that rider obtain that goal? By circulating as quickly as possible and by reducing the possibility of crashing to an acceptable level - of course, that level of acceptability will be different for everyone, but the basic premise remains valid.

On a tarmac surfaced circuit how can a rider increase their corner entry, mid-corner and corner exit speeds? The entry is pretty obvious, practice braking to the point of locking up and flinging the bike onto its side as hard as you can. Whether you're hanging off the bike or sticking your foot out will make no difference here. However, your corner exit speed, and therefore your speed along the next straight, is in many ways dictated by your mid-corner speed which must therefore be one the most important areas to improve - unless you brake so early everyone comes sailing past you, obviously, but that's a slightly different argument...

So, what's the best way a rider can increase their mid-corner speed? By riding in such a way as to allow the bike to travel faster for a given level of traction. If you ride around the corner with your foot out motocross style, you must push the bike down - but this means the bike is at a fairly high level of lean and, thus, a reduced level of available traction when compare to the road racing technique of hanging off the bike as this actually pushes the bike up, which puts the tyres onto a larger contact patch for the same speed - and that larger contact patch equals more traction. For a knee-scraping rider to equal the low level of available traction that the foot out rider has requires the knee down rider to traverse that same corner at a higher speed.

Plus, although the foot is stuck out to kick the bike up in a slide, just how much use is that foot going to be at the levels of lean and cornering speeds faster riders achieve on a tarmac surface where their handlebars are only around four inches above the track surface and their leg is effectively pointing horizontally to the floor? At motocross speeds it may help, but at supermotard speeds...?

As for the forward weight transfer of the foot out style? Well, there's no denying planting the front even further is no bad thing, but isn't it possible to also load the front with the knee out technique, too? Yes it is. Because you're sat as far forward as you can get going into the corner, you're already in the correct forward position for knee scraping. If you're body is also hanging off the side you're moving the bike's weight lower, for better corner speed, and still loading the front as you're moving your entire body weight not just your leg.

Obviously, when it comes to racing off-road, the entire priority of the rider changes. Yes, the main requirement is still to go as fast as possible, but now the speeds are relatively far lower yet the chances of sliding has increased dramatically. In this situation, hanging off a bike may lessen the lean angle and, therefore, the chances of sliding, but if you do slide will hanging off allow you to stay up right, to not crash, to finish the race, to gain those all important championship points? No, it won't. Just as road racers hang off their machines for very good reasons, so motocross racers use their feet to save potentially terminal slides and to increase the weight through the front tyre to hopefully make losing the front less likely, too. But surely that technique will also save a tarmac slide? Well, it might, but then that same technique has also raised the potential of sliding in the first place when the road rider's style would have allowed you to corner at that same speed with a far lower possibility of losing traction.

Now, before every supermotard racer reading this starts foaming at the mouth about the points raised, let's get one thing straight - we're blatantly talking about absolutes here. Absolute tarmac and absolute off-road. Except 'motard tracks aren't (or, at least, shouldn't be) a single surface type, they're dual terrain, they're both mud/shale and tarmac, so just what is the answer? Well, that's pretty simple - whatever a particular corner requires. You may have a 90% tarmac circuit where only one corner would actually be quicker if you hung off the bike, so surely that's what you'd do? If the circuit's wet using your foot may help in the slower corners where losing traction's a very large possibility; if a corner's covered in mud from the off-road section then using your foot may again be the best way to navigate that particular corner. And, if knee-scraping's so alien to you that it makes you slower no matter what the conditions are, then either practice or stick with what you're comfortable with. Quite simply, there is no definitive answer, only possibilities that a rider can exploit fully to become as good as they can be. And that's the reason for writing this, to give you, the racer, more possibilities. After all, you can't just tune a bike by choosing between the different possibilities of tyres, tyre pressures, exhausts, state of engine tune, type of engine, different suspension settings etc. until you find a combination that works best, you can also tune the rider until you find the best combination of riding techniques that work best for you, too.