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Scarponi, 37, left home early on Saturday morning for a
training ride where the accident occurred at a crossroads.
"This is a tragedy too big to be written," Astana said in a
statement.
"We left a great champion and a special guy, always smiling in
every situation, he was... a landmark for everyone in the Astana
Pro Team."
Scarponi, who completed the Tour of the Alps on Friday, after
winning a stage and finishing fourth overall, is survived by his
wife and two children.
Scarponi, who started his professional career in 2002, got his
best results in Italian races, winning three stages on the Giro
before being handed the 2011 title after Alberto Contador was
stripped of his victory because of a retroactive doping ban.
He also had good results in the one-day races, finishing fourth
on the Liege-Bastogne-Liege classic in 2003.
Scarponi was suspended for 18 months after being implicated in
the Operation Puerto blood doping scandal in 2006.
After he returned from suspension, he won the Tirreno-Adriatico
in 2009 and the Tour of Catalonia in 2011.
"We will miss this guy in the peleton, always with a smile,"
Olympic champion Greg van Avermaet wrote on Twitter.
(Reporting by Julien Pretot and Simon Jennings; editing by Amlan
Chakraborty and Toby Davis)
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