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Does the Five have replacable dropouts? My old Heckler had a horrid creak when I got it, a bit of grease in the dropout / mech hangar solved it nicely.
Bottom bracket threads were the orgin of my creaks, and pretty much still are. Have to regularly strip and regrease. I agree with the wheel swap plan for diagnosis, there is a lot of potential in a wheel if you can swap and try without that rear wheel I think it will narrow your options considerably.
whilst re-tightening random bolts up on the bike i found my pedal bolt was really loose (had been at lee quarry yesterday maybe it came too loose (lol) hence the creaking strain on the pedal when force applied. (hope it was that ...anyway cleaned any muck n grit off that loose pedal and greased that too...so c how i go.... its wet outside at the mo, seems like the bike just likes creaking when its bone dry outside too..lol im certainly on with the creaking quest 
BTW...cheers for the above link.. 😉
Hopefully you have cured it with the above but I found that a different ie less torque on the bearing pivot pinch bolt sorted the creaking on my 5.
Had an anoying creak on my bike for a while turned out I'd tightened myhollotech crank too much the plastic pretensioner doesn't need much tightening
I had this problem on my 5.
Either replace the pivot bearings or check that the alloy wedge that holds them in place is clean on the machined inside face and is properly aligned with the swingarm. Also torque up the 2 bolts correctly (12-14 nm)
so originally when i rang 'orange' up he said they dont like to change the pivot bearings too often they are sealed...so those of you with orange fives..how often do you change yours ?
My apologies in advance for this but.........
When they need changing! 🙂
Disconnect the shock (only one end) and manually move the swing arm through its travel if rough change if not leave em!
sorry but this is all I do
Have you checked it isn't slack spokes on the rear wheel? I went through this whole process with my 5 and it was the spokes rubbing and creaking against each other.
lol this thread
you might as well just johnny 5 the whole bike Stephanie!
I changed the bearings on my 5 after 3 1/2 years of weekly riding. They were full of mud and the outer shell was broken on one hence the cracking noise. However they still worked and had no obvious sideways play when the shock was disconnected.
Changing the bearings is easy. Orange will send you an instruction sheet with a new bearing kit and there are plenty of references on the Internet with video etc. All you need are 3 & 5mm hex wrenches, a soft faced mallet and some copperslip grease. When tapping the swingarm off the old bearings make sure you only hit the welds. The most time consuming bit is to properly align the swingarm on the new bearings. If you can't get the instruction sheet mail me and I'll send a copy of mine. I also used the link mentioned above which shows exactly how to do it.
Mates pivot bearing was shot after a year, but we do ride in some crap.
I had a creak on my Cube Ams Pro, that sounded as if it came from the bottom bracket. I had to strip and clean the right pedal after it started the click. After the pedal strip clean the creak has gone. Mybe
coincidence.
well last nite after general tightening of bolts etc i did come across a not so tight bolt on the pedal...-i hardly had to turn it... (i did say under pressure i thort the noise was coming from crank area (which was put down to numerous theorys.. anyway after greasing the pedal thread - today i went on the 3 biggest hills i could find here in the 'calderdale valley' (which there are plenty of ! i purpously started out on a very dry hill and no creaking wot so ever ! carried on over the bridleways then back into town then up a slow long tarmac hill at the end of my ride just to check out the pedals agin, no creaking for a couple of hours (ahh bliss)....for the moment touch wood no creaking....so will see what happens over the next few weeks...so for me it was a looser than normal pedal bolt...
i will use that above link for future ref in the next few weeks if needed....thanks all for your input.....some good advice for once.. 😉 even if my speling lets me down sometimes...lol (i blame the wind in the calder valley it does tend to blow your brains somewhat...hahah 😉
Well done on tracing the creak, looks like it wasn't the fault of the frame ( unlucky 5 haters)
Another fault causing a creak on my five was a snapped pro 2 bolt through axle, changed the pro 2 hub for a bulb and silence as well as IMO a sturdier axle design.