I had a PA22/108 (Colt). A good starting battery in a plane is really essential if you stop the engine in flight for slope soaring (well, at least not losing altitude as quickly in the Colt) and then need to restart it.
We started out hang gliding, went on to a homebuilt ultralight airplane, and then we shopped for quite a while for a general aviation airplane. Our friends in the ultralight club mostly went to experimentals and classic planes. For a couple years we looked mostly at fabric covered planes, but eventually found a Cherokee which was a better value than anything else we had seen.
We came extremely close to getting a Tri-Pacer; we really have a soft spot for Tri-Pacers and Colts.