I just had a conversation with one of my Highlander friends that lives in Canada, and he now has about 75 hours on his new Desser 27 inch bush tires on the 8 inch wheels, and he absolutely loves them.*He had Matco 21's on originally, then spent the big bucks and put on a set of 29 inch ABW's, which he also really liked. But he said he lost a lot of cruise speed with those, and hated knowing what it was costing him whenever he had to operate on pavement.

He said it was strange, but the Desser 27's are only about 3 mph slower than his old 21's in cruise, whereas the 29 ABW's were more than double that (I personally think that is because not only is the ABW 29 much taller, but more of a factor is that it is much wider than the Desser 27). Interestingly, he said the Desser feels nearly as soft as the ABW, but wears more like a standard tire on pavement. And of course, they are a lot less $$.

Hopefully this info might help your decision if you decide you still want to use a larger tire. just posted this in another thread, but thought it should be included here as well.

Here's a link to the forum where the Highlander guys are talking about their results with the Desser's. http://wingsforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=218&t=23668