I'm a mechanical kind of guy, but if money was no object and I had a designated "climbing bike," I'd for sure put them on the bars near the stem. I regularly do a lot of extended hills where my hands are on the tops most of the time and shifting is quite frequent. It's one of the main reasons I switched from SRAM mechanical to Shimano as the effort to reach from the tops to perform a "double click" to an easier gear using SRAM was annoying.
Assuming my climbing bike has a round handlebar, I could use the blip clamps and face the blips towards the saddle and keep them low profile in relation to the frontal area. It's also ergonomic in the sense that it would generally be my thumb pushing the blips and that would be the ideal location, at least for me.
Now if I have a aero handlebar (presumably on a bike not strictly for climbing), then I'm not sure I'd go with the blips as they are currently designed. Aero handlebars generally don't have a wide 31.8 mm clamp area that's round to accommodate much more than the stem. So the blips would need to be on the top of the flat portion of the bars and under the bar tape as the current SRAM blip clams only work on a 31.8 mm round surface. Having the bar tape run that close to the center of the bar, and then having a bulge under the bar tape that increases frontal area kind of defeats the whole purpose of an aero handlebar. Ease of shifting while climbing vs reduced aerodynamics when you aren't climbing...I'd probably just go without the blips, or wait to see if another blip option becomes available that makes more sense on an aero handlebar.
Assuming my climbing bike has a round handlebar, I could use the blip clamps and face the blips towards the saddle and keep them low profile in relation to the frontal area. It's also ergonomic in the sense that it would generally be my thumb pushing the blips and that would be the ideal location, at least for me.
Now if I have a aero handlebar (presumably on a bike not strictly for climbing), then I'm not sure I'd go with the blips as they are currently designed. Aero handlebars generally don't have a wide 31.8 mm clamp area that's round to accommodate much more than the stem. So the blips would need to be on the top of the flat portion of the bars and under the bar tape as the current SRAM blip clams only work on a 31.8 mm round surface. Having the bar tape run that close to the center of the bar, and then having a bulge under the bar tape that increases frontal area kind of defeats the whole purpose of an aero handlebar. Ease of shifting while climbing vs reduced aerodynamics when you aren't climbing...I'd probably just go without the blips, or wait to see if another blip option becomes available that makes more sense on an aero handlebar.