PROSERPINE'S paracycling gold medallist and Mackay Cycling Club member David Nicholas has been awarded a top Cycling Queensland award.

Nicholas, who has cerebral palsy, has won the International Cyclist of the Year Award, following his gold-medal-winning performance in the C3 Individual Pursuit at the Rio Paralympic Games.

That was despite a tough year in 2015, when he was put on life support after falling victim to pulmonary pneumonia.

Nicholas also took second place in the Track Pursuit at the Para-cycling Track World Championships in Italy in March.

Since he's been home, the Proserpine resident has been regularly stopped in the street by local residents congratulating him on his Olympic performance.

"It's nice to receive the recognition for the hard work that you put in and I had some good results in Rio and at the World Champs,” he said.

"I've been taking it pretty easy since Rio, just doing light training and enjoying riding my bike. I've just started to get back into normal training to prepare for the National Track Championships in December.”

" ... the community have been really good, people stop me up the street to say congratulations.”

Nicholas headed to the Cycling Australia Awards in Melbourne last weekend, and will be at the Sporting Wheelie Awards in Brisbane this weekend.

"Too many awards really when you're trying to get back into training,” he joked.

The busy 24-year-old athlete said he was "learning with every competition” and was confident this would lead to even better performances on the track in coming years.

"There will be national road champs next year and hopefully I'll make another Aussie team to compete overseas,” he said.